


Bad Moon Rising

by shookethspeare



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Dark, Detectives, Domestic Violence, F/F, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Major Character Injury, Mental Health Issues, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Minor Character Death, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Serial Killers, Sex, Sex Work, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 75,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23707846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shookethspeare/pseuds/shookethspeare
Summary: Newly minted detectives, Ulrich Stern and Odd Della Robbia, have just been handed a brand new case: sex workers in the Boulogne-Billancourt arrondissement have been going missing - then turning up dead weeks later.Throw in a Captain and Lieutenant hellbent on making Ulrich and Odd's job harder, a feisty reporter hoping to get to the bottom of the case, a computer forensics genius begrudgingly helping the two detectives find answers, and a mysterious girl who brings them all together.But are they all putting too much on the line? And can they stop whatever's happening before it's too late?
Relationships: Aelita Schaeffer & Amelia "Milly" Solovieff, Odd Della Robbia & Ulrich Stern, Odd Della Robbia/Sissi Delmas, Sissi Delmas & Ulrich Stern, Tamiya Diop & Yumi Ishiyama, Yumi Ishiyama/Ulrich Stern
Comments: 90
Kudos: 51
Collections: General Darkness ‘n Shiz





	1. Bad Moon Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my very first fan fiction!  
> I figured the pandemic was the best time to start getting my work out.  
> Here's the first chapter; it's short but I promise the others will be longer!
> 
> Warnings:  
> 1\. Graphic violence and mentions of graphic violence  
> 2\. Possible mentions of rape, but no graphic depictions of it  
> 3\. Descriptions of court proceedings  
> 4\. Discussions of sex work  
> 5\. Some biases towards sex work, esp. from police officers
> 
> Sidenotes:  
> All characters are aged up!  
> Ulrich/Odd/Jeremie: 26-27  
> Yumi: 27  
> Aelita: 25-26
> 
> Also: I live in America and do not know how the French legal system works BUT alongside this fan fiction I am researching that, so bear with me!

CHAPTER 1 - Bad Moon Rising

_“I see a bad moon rising….I see trouble on the way…”_

“Firstly, you’re singing off key. And slow down, lead foot, you’re going ten over!”

Detective Ulrich Stern side-eyed his partner briefly before focusing back on the road, tapping out the beat of the song on the steering wheel. 

“You’re in a police cruiser, remember?” Odd Della Robbia pushed. “The one we just managed to get during our promotion?” Ulrich sighed and relented, easing his foot off the gas. 

“Thank you.” 

The two had been partners for a year, finally managing to work their way through the ranks to detectives in the past month. It had only taken months of late nights at the desk working small-time thefts, investigating stolen credit cards, and handling the occasional domestic disturbance call before the Captain had begun to notice their determination and work ethic.

Perhaps it helped that the two were also roommates, subconsciously challenging each other to work at the station into the wee hours of the morning; collecting evidence, scouring CCTV footage, and compiling necessary information to make arrests. 

Whatever it was, the Captain and the police board had taken notice and assigned them heavier cases - and a patrol car.

The Captain, however, was not naive to the rumors around the station about Ulrich’s reckless behavior and Odd’s propensity to turn most things into a joke. He had given them the promotion on one condition: the two had to start taking the job more seriously. It had required an enormous amount of growing up; but the two were nearing 28, and both agreed that growing up was a much needed action in the first place.

_“Don’t go round tonight…’cause it’s bound to take your life...there’s a bad moon on the rise!”_

Odd chuckled as Ulrich slaughtered the notes to the song, amused at his partner’s obsession with American rock music. “You need a better taste in music, man. Let the American ‘70’s go.”

This time it was Ulrich’s turn to chuckle. “As if your taste is any better! European dance music is the cliché to end all others. It’s not even good - the same beat followed by some words played on a computer. You could hardly call that music.”

“At least it’s something you can dance to! It has dance in the name. You can’t dance to rock music, all you can do is- SHIT! WATCH OUT!”

A young woman had dashed out into the road, slightly hunched forward and limping, her arms waving for them to stop; from inside the police cruiser her screaming was muffled, but both men could hear the snag in her throat as she screeched her voice raw.

Ulrich’s head snapped forward and he slammed on the brakes, yanking the steering wheel to the side and sending the car careening into a ditch. The two boys were silent until the sound of the motor running and the wracked sobs of the young woman in the road jolted them out of shock.

“Jesus Christ, are you alright?” Ulrich asked his partner, cataloguing his own whiplashed neck. The other man’s eyes were wide with shock as he stared past him and out of the driver side window. “Holy shit..”

Ulrich was the first to exit the car, hand resting on his service pistol as he glanced around for the girl. She immediately came stumbling forward out of the dark road, sobbing. “Help me! Please, oh god, please!!” 

He reached out for her, hands clasping her thin arm, before suddenly yanking his hand away in surprise. She was covered, head to toe, in blood - and now that blood was all over his palm.

“Holy shit..” Ulrich glanced behind him at the voice and realized Odd had also stepped out of the car. Ulrich pulled the woman with him into the beam of the patrol car’s headlights to catalogue her injuries, but it didn’t help. The blood was covering so much of her body, and her torn clothing, that he couldn’t tell where the wounds were. From underneath the blood-matted hair that clung to her face he could just about make out that her left eye was swollen nearly shut and her lips and nose had been badly battered. 

“Odd, radio in that we’re taking a woman to the hospital, tell the ER to be ready..” He heard Odd clamber back into the patrol car to radio in, then turned his attention back to the woman.

Her sobbing hadn’t let up, and she quickly hunched her body forward protectively into Ulrich’s chest. 

“Please! Please help me, please! Oh god..”

“Okay, it’s okay..” He soothed, leading her gently to the back of the police car, “can you tell me your name?” He opened the door and helped her in, buckling the seatbelt as she rocked back and forth gently, cradling her own body in her arms. Ulrich was suddenly and painfully aware of how small she looked in the back of the cruiser.

“Aelita..” She sobbed, “Aelita Hopper...”


	2. As You Like It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW:  
> 1\. Heavy bias towards sex workers from police officers  
> 2\. Alcohol  
> 3\. Discussion of physical assault
> 
> A Big thank you to my Beta Readers: @/caleblegend_ on twitter and my roommates
> 
> Will update as soon as I get Chapter 3 done, but finals are soon so it may take longer.

Odd Della Robbia had never liked hospitals. 

In his line of work the hospital meant someone was usually in critical condition or worse: dead. Prior to starting on the force (and prior to living with Ulrich) he had worked as a paramedic in the Boulogne-Billancourt area of Paris, and it wasn’t a career he was itching to get back to. 

On some nights he would jolt awake, soaked in sweat and exhausted from an all-too-real nightmare, the remnants of which had snatched a scream from his throat before it had come to fruition. Ulrich was careful not to mention the noises he heard from Odd’s room on those nights, but always managed to make an extra helping of eggs for breakfast when Odd shuffled into the kitchen the next morning. 

It was safe to say it had surprised him when it was Ulrich, not himself, who had jumped to the young woman’s aid. Despite two years of saving lives and keeping a level head during the most severe of crises, he had frozen when he saw the woman soaked in blood in the middle of the road; and all of his paramedic training had joined the patrol car in a screeching halt towards the ditch.

The pair of detectives were now in the waiting room of the ER: Odd waiting patiently in a seat, wondering if it was acceptable to sneak over to the hospital cafeteria for a cup of mediocre coffee, while Ulrich paced anxiously in front of him. 

Odd had pointedly ignored the 10 minutes that Ulrich spent in the ER bathroom scrubbing his hands. He knew better than most that the first time seeing that much blood on the outside of a person, let alone getting it on you, was a jarring experience. 

“That was a lot of blood.” Ulrich muttered for the fifth time, then sat down next to his partner. Odd placed a hand on Ulrich’s knee in an attempt to calm him down and stop the annoying leg bounce that the man was doing.

“I know, but she was very coherent when we got her here, that’s a good sign.” 

Coherent was a lie, Odd mused. The woman had been in hysterics long after they had arrived at the emergency bay, and the two detectives had overheard the nurses’ hushed whispers of sedation. 

“Is this what every day was like? Being a paramedic?” Ulrich broached.

Odd shrugged, and patted Ulrich awkwardly on the shoulder - his tell for avoiding a subject.

“You’re a detective now, Stern. You work on the force. Occasionally you’re going to see things that you don’t want to see.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours later the two detectives walked into the station, empty handed and exhausted. The night had been spent in the ER hoping to interview the woman they had found on the road; but five hours later with the woman sedated and the nurses less than happy to help, they decided to head back. 

“My head is pounding, man, I need a fucking coffee.” Ulrich muttered to his partner as they pulled open the door to the bullpen. Odd snorted in response, “You and me both, Stern.”

“Della Robbia. Stern. My office, now!” 

They shared a look before trudging towards the Captain’s office. Inside sat Captain Delmas; and next to him, arms crossed and a hard look on his face, stood Lieutenant Morales. 

“Shut the door.” The Captain ordered as they filed in.

“So, I heard you had an eventful night.” 

Standing next to Ulrich, Odd snorted. “You could say that, Sir.”

“I expect a full report on the situation. Did you interview the girl?”

“Uh, no Sir,” Ulrich said, “She was sedated. We left our cards there for the nurses to give her when she wakes up.” 

Lieutenant Morales moved forward, tossing a thin file onto the desk in front of the detectives. “Speaking of the girl: I had Poliakoff look her up when you called in her ID. She’s a hooker. Got records for soliciting in Boulevard de Clichy, the red light district.”

Ulrich poured over her mugshot, stopping at her bubblegum pink hair. He hadn’t noticed it under all of the blood and the thought made his stomach turn.

Lieutenant Morales hadn’t been lying; the woman - Aelita Anthea Hopper, 25 - had at least five priors; three for solicitation and two for petty theft. 

Ulrich looked up at Morales. “Clichy? What was she doing in Boulogne-Billancourt if she works in Clichy?” 

“Who knows,” He snorted, “they’re hookers, they get around.” 

Odd bristled. “That’s not fair, they’re not shitty people, they just have a shitty job.”

Morales was poised to respond in kind when the Captain held up his hand. 

“Della Robbia. Lieutenant Morales. Get back to work, I want to speak with Detective Stern privately.”

Ulrich flicked his eyes towards a fuming Odd then back to the Captain, but neither spoke until the door clicked shut. 

“Have a seat, son.” He leaned back in his chair as Ulrich took the seat across from him. “How are you doing?”

“Uh..fine, Sir? Why do you ask?”

“Because your hands have been shaking since you walked into the bullpen.” 

At the mention of his hands Ulrich tucked them quickly into his lap. He had noticed the shaking but had chalked it up to being awake all night with no caffeine.  
In reality, Ulrich had been itching to get to a bathroom to continue scrubbing any residual blood off of his hands.

“I’m fine, Captain Delmas. Just need some coffee.” 

The Captain chuckled before pushing the folder towards Ulrich. “You better grab some because it looks like you’ve got a new case, Detective.”

He grinned down at the folder then back up at the older man. “Are you serious?”

“Don’t get too excited. I’m sure it was just some domestic disturbance, but yes, you and Della Robbia call the shots on this case.”

Ulrich rose from his seat, grasping the folder in his hands like a lifeline. “Thank you, Sir. We won’t let you down.”

He was halfway out of the door before the Captain stopped him again, “Oh, and Stern? Grab a new shirt, yours is covered in blood.”

Ulrich quickly dropped the file onto the desk he and Odd shared before making a beeline towards the bathrooms, dropping to his knees in front of the commode and relieving his stomach of its contents. After a handful of dry-heaves he flushed the toilet and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, standing up. Odd stood in front of the sinks with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“You’re lucky the Lieutenant didn’t see you losing last night’s supper. They’d think you have no edge and take you right off this case.”

Ulrich pushed past him to wash his hands. “So you were eavesdropping, then?”

The grin on his partner’s face answered that question.

He gave Odd a shaky smirk in the mirror, then rinsed out his mouth before snatching a handful of paper towels. “Don’t get too excited, we’re only interviewing the woman. For all we know this could’ve been another domestic disturbance.” The men exited the bathrooms and returned to their desks. 

“Is that what Delmas said? He would say that, try to keep the panic down.” 

Ulrich passed Aelita Hopper’s file over to Odd.

“I think,” Odd started, sipping on a steaming cup of coffee, “that we should celebrate our new promotion with drinks at The Factory tonight.”

“And I think we should focus on the case right now.” He gave Odd a chastising look before picking up his desk phone and dialing the number for the hospital.

“Yeah, hi, my name is Detective Stern. I brought in a woman last night, badly battered - her last name Hopper, first name Aelita. I was wondering if you could tell me if she’s awake so we can get in touch with her?” 

Ulrich listened intently to the voice on the other end, eyes unreadable.

“Alright..uh, thanks anyways.” He set the phone back on the receiver and looked up at Odd. 

“What is it?” Odd asked. 

“Ms. Hopper checked herself out of the hospital an hour ago.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four blocks north of Ulrich and Odd’s shared apartment, nestled in between a metro station and an underfunded library, sat a seedy-looking restaurant that hid an even seedier bar known as The Factory. In a bizarre happenstance the two men had sat beside each other on the barstools late one night, drunk and commiserating about Ulrich’s hard-to-please father and Odd’s fifth girlfriend of the month. Several beers and a handful of bartop peanuts later, they had concocted a plan to move in together, exchanging phone numbers and agreeing they would talk in the morning when they weren’t so drunk. 

Sixteen months later the commiseration had been replaced with celebration as the men clinked glasses together, quickly digging into the burgers they had ordered. 

“I wish there was an address or something for Hopper, she’s like a ghost. Even her file had no address listed.” Ulrich was tapping his fingers against his glass, staring intently into the golden-red liquid. 

Odd looked up from his burger and took a sip of beer to clear his mouth. “Ulrich, you’re the best friend a guy could have, but tonight is about _celebrating_. Can you cut the work talk?”

“Odd, the celebration is about snagging a case. This whole night is work talk.”

The two men smirked at each other, knowing the other’s gibes. 

“I don’t know,” Odd conceded, tearing another bite from his burger, “p’raps she dosn’t have a home.”

Ulrich looked away in disgust, ignoring the flecks of food that had landed in front of him, and glanced around the bar. 

He had spent the day pouring over Aelita Hopper’s records and outlining a clearer picture of the woman’s whereabouts for the past year. Besides the arrests for solicitation and theft there had also been a handful of domestic disturbance reports called in by neighbors. The address listed hadn’t been under Aelita’s name and Ulrich assumed it belonged to a boyfriend - but after several phone calls with the neighbor and the landlord, he was no closer to finding her than he was that morning. 

“Are you even listening to me, asshole?” Odd chuckled, waving a hand in front of the other man’s face.

Ulrich glanced back at him as a waitress walked past, filling their glasses and taking away their empty plates.

“Thanks...I just keep thinking about that woman..and all that blood.”

Odd nodded, wiping his hands with a napkin. “Maybe she went back to Clichy, if that’s where she was from before. Her apartment was near there right?”

“My gut is telling me she’s still here. I’m gonna try phoning the women’s shelters and halfway houses again, tomorrow.”

Odd slid out of the seat and reached for his wallet. “Alright, you ready to pay? We got beers at home.” 

After paying the two stepped out into the night, making their way onto the streets of Boulogne-Billancourt and towards their apartment. The sun had barely set and an orange-purple light bathed the concrete around them. The noises of the city spilled out from apartments and shops on the street, filling their comfortable silence, but Ulrich could tell that Odd had something on his mind. 

“Did it..” The blond man started, and Ulrich motioned for him to continue.

“Did it bother you? The way Morales was talking about that woman? You didn’t even bat an eyelash.”

It was a conversation the pair had had multiple times throughout their shared tenure at the police department, under varying circumstances. Where Odd’s obvious emotions garnered attention and got him into trouble, Ulrich had a tendency to shut down, letting whatever he was feeling simmer under the surface until he retreated to the safety of his room. On several occasions Odd had landed himself desk duty for mouthing off or causing a fight, usually when another officer said something less than proper about a suspect or a case. 

Ulrich would never forget the first time they had fought as roommates. Odd had stomped through the door, ranting and raving about Lieutenant Morales’ lack of professionalism and how it seeped through the ranks and influenced everyone around them. Just when Ulrich thought he had worn himself out, Odd turned his wagging finger on him, accusing Ulrich of complacency in the bigoted rhetoric shared by the officers. 

After two slammed doors and three days of silence, Odd acknowledged that Ulrich was only trying to save his job and that he had misplaced his anger on the wrong person. In a way, however, Ulrich couldn’t help but feel that Odd had a point. He never showed when something angered him, usually tucking it away to deal with later; lick his wounds privately. When Odd was done apologizing Ulrich conceded that perhaps his own communication skills were lacking as well, and that it was something they could both work on. 

“It did.” He assured Odd, and the man seemed to relax. “I wish Delmas would say something to him. If we have to bring Aelita Hopper in for questioning, I’m not letting Morales in that fucking room.”

They were now two blocks from their apartment and the sun had fully set. Cars were scarce and the occasional person walked past them hurriedly, determined to get home. As they approached the corner they caught a glimpse of a woman leaning into a car window - a telltale sign of an illicit transaction. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” Odd was the first to react, reaching for his badge.

The woman stood up and stepped away from the car, which peeled away from the curb.

“Nothing. Nothing’s going on.” She eyed Odd’s badge warily, glancing between the two men. 

Ulrich watched as Odd easily slipped into the persona he carried on-duty. The man returned his badge to his back pocket.

“Are you sure? I’m gonna need to see some ID.” 

The girl looked ready to bolt until she looked past the two men and visibly relaxed. Footsteps, quiet at first but drawing closer, drew Ulrich’s attention behind him.

“You okay, Milly? Are these cops harassing you?” 

The detectives’ mouths dropped, simultaneously. In front of them stood a spitting image of the mugshot they had been chasing all day - the bright pink hair a dead giveaway under the streetlights. Aelita Hopper stepped closer and Ulrich sucked in a breath at the bruises, still visible, that were half-heartedly smeared with concealer. 

“Are you detaining her or is she free to go, gentlemen?” Aelita asked. 

“We’re not detaining her.” Odd confirmed.

Aelita moved forward, grabbing the other woman’s hand. 

“Wait, wait!” Ulrich grabbed Aelita’s shoulder, then released it when she flinched. 

“We’re not on duty..Ms. Hopper, we’ve been looking for you all day.”

Aelita maintained eye contact with Ulrich. “Milly, scram. I’ll take care of this.”

The detectives watched as Milly hesitated, not wanting to leave Aelita alone with two men, before turning away and hurrying into the darkness. The woman reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, putting one into her mouth and lighting it. 

“Hope you don’t mind if I smoke.” She muttered, insincerely. 

Odd and Ulrich exchanged unsure glances before focusing their attention on the woman. In more even lighting she was thinner than Ulrich had initially thought, but it fit her small frame well. Her clothes were new, or close to it, and she looked clean - aside from the injuries she had sustained the night before. Ulrich couldn’t see her arms but from her appearance it didn’t look like she was using recreational drugs. The thought marginally settled his stomach. 

“You’re the officers who found me last night.” It wasn’t a question, she knew who she was talking to. 

“How are you feeling?” Odd asked.

Cigarette smoke slipped past her smirking lips. 

“We tried to reach you at the hospital this morning. You had already left.” 

When she didn’t respond Ulrich had to quell the simmering annoyance under his skin. 

“Ms. Hopper, we want to help you. You can tell us what happened..”

“Hell, we’re off duty right now, I’m not gonna take you in.”

Ulrich nudged Odd in the ribs, giving him a pointed glare.

“I hope you’ll understand that I don’t trust cops. _Even_ the good ones.” She stopped Odd before he could argue. “I didn’t call you because I didn’t see the guy who did it. Besides, he was a John. I was working. Cops never take working girls seriously, especially in Boulogne-Billancourt.” 

_‘They’re hookers. They get around.’_

Ulrich nodded in understanding. “But someone _did_ hurt you then?”

Aelita kept her eyes downward when she nodded and the detectives waited for her to continue. 

“He pulled up to the curb and asked how much for a couple of hours, so I told him. I couldn’t really see, even leaning in the window, and I just had this..” She shuffled from foot to foot, “I had this bad feeling, like in my stomach. I told him I changed my mind and he argued with me.”

“And an argument led to that much blood?” Odd asked, incredulously.

“I wasn’t finished. I started walking away, to cross the street, and he drove forward. He wasn't driving that fast, he just knocked me over, but then he grabbed me and threw me in the car.”

Despite her hard set eyes and posture her voice was soft as she spoke. 

“When he parked I tried to run for it, but that just angered him more. I really thought I was going to die, I was so scared..and I don’t know how I got away but I ran into the road and you nearly hit me.”

“Wait, you’re telling me he was in the lot next to the road when we grabbed you?” 

Aelita shrugged and dropped her cigarette, stepping on it with the heel of her boot. 

Ulrich tried to remember anything he could from the night before, anything about their surroundings, but was drawing a blank. He had been so focused on the woman, the blood, and getting her to the hospital, that he had failed to look around him. A glance at his partner told him Odd was thinking the same thing. 

“I know you don’t trust cops..” Odd broached, “but please consider filing a report. If he did this to you, he might do it to someone else..and they might not be so lucky.” 

She maintained eye contact despite her silence, as if daring Odd to continue. The man pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “This one has my cell phone on it, too. If you decide to report it.” 

Aelita nodded her thanks and pocketed the card. 

Ulrich briefly touched her shoulder before stepping away. “Get off the streets tonight, okay? We won’t take you in, but the rest of the department won’t hesitate.”

They watched as she melted into the blackness of the city, then turned towards home.


	3. The Body in the Bags

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Description of brutal violence and bodily trauma (including blood)  
> 2\. Descriptions of sex work (non-graphic)  
> 3\. Negative aspects of police officers

“I really don’t get what was so important that they had to call us at ‘ass o’clock’ in the morning,” Ulrich muttered. His body was slouched down in the passenger seat of the police cruiser, arms crossed and a pair of sunglasses fixed firmly on his pale face. As Odd made a left turn onto the next street, Ulrich’s head quietly thudded against the window in resignation. Odd shared the feeling of queasy hungover-ness - each blink of his eyelids felt like sandpaper scraping across his eyes. His stomach lurched uncomfortably as he turned the car onto Rue Gallieni, spotting another police cruiser and the department’s forensics van parked at the mouth of a nearby alley.

Upon returning to their apartment the night prior, the two had continued to imbibe as their interest in Aelita Hopper’s case renewed ten-fold. Their conversation with the mysterious young woman had left them with more questions than answers – had they completely missed her attacker when they had pulled over to help her? Was someone targeting her, or was this a random encounter? Did Aelita know more than she was letting on?

Night had turned into the wee hours of the morning before the two men retreated to their separate rooms, drunk and slurring their goodnights, only to be woken up three hours later to the Captain demanding their presence at a crime scene. 

Odd parked the car and killed the ignition, nudging Ulrich out of his hungover stupor. “What do you think they called us out here for?” Ulrich asked as they both stepped out of the car. 

The other man didn’t have time to respond before the two began pushing through the crowd that had formed at the mouth of the alley. 

“Excusez-moi! Police, excusez-moi!” He flashed his badge at the begrudging passersby until the two managed to nudge their way through the crowd, ducking under the police tape.

Odd peered further into the alley, cataloguing the scene. Several large dumpsters lined the walls, leaving a miniscule amount of space for the forensic technicians to navigate as they began taping off various parts of the alley. Their efforts were concentrated on one dumpster in particular, second on the left from where the detectives were standing, almost overflowing with bulging trash bags. Between the dumpsters and detectives stood the two officers that had first responded to the scene – William Dunbar and Nicolas Poliakoff. The pair were speaking in hushed tones to a third man who was clad in an animal control uniform. 

The detectives exchanged confused glances before Odd sidled up to the officers and Ulrich ventured further into the alley. 

“Dunbar, Poliakoff.” He greeted the men, receiving similar salutations in return. Officer Poliakoff ushered the animal control officer a few paces away and Officer Dunbar turned to face the new arrival. 

“Morning, Odd. I assume Delmas called you guys in?” 

“Yeah,” The detective replied, “what’s going on? Why is animal control here?”  
William glanced back at his partner and the man in question before handing Odd his notepad filled with notes of the scene so far. 

“Last night the owner of the restaurant next door called animal control about a rotting carcass smell. They sent that guy,” He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the animal control officer, “to check it out. Gets here, opens the dumpster, and finds what he thinks are human feet, instead.”

Odd flicked his eyes towards the dumpster then jerked his head to look at William, eyes wide in incredulity. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right…feet?” He repeated, then dropped his voice conspiratorially upon remembering the growing crowd behind them. _“Feet?”_

William nodded and pointed into the alley where the two forensic technicians, Jeremie Belpois and Herve Pichon, were carefully removing the contents of the dumpster. A smaller bag caught Odd’s eye as it was placed on the plastic sheeting, awaiting documentation. There was a slit, roughly the size of a baseball, in the lower corner of the bag; through it, Odd could barely make out a flesh color marred by the tale-tell, crimson stain of blood. Following the red with his eyes, he noticed that the blood was slowly leaking out of the bag and onto the plastic sheeting, forming a rivulet towards the mouth of the alley. 

“Excusez-moi! Officers!” 

Both men turned around at the sound of the woman’s voice, scanning the growing crowd to find the source. A slender woman with short-cropped, dark hair had made her way to the police tape, a camera resting in her hands. Odd could just make out a notepad tucked under her left armpit and a pen nestled precariously behind her ear. 

“Great,” He muttered to William, “just what we need: paparazzi.”

Odd watched as Ulrich strode forward towards the police tape, forcing a smile. “Can I help you?” He asked the woman. 

The pair were nearly the same height, and she fixed him with an even look, baring her teeth in an insincere smile.

“My name is Yumi Ishiyama, I work for the Kadic News in town. Can you tell me what’s going on, here?” Yumi raised her camera to snap a photo but Ulrich quickly rested his hand in front of the lens, pushing it back towards her. 

“I’m sorry, Miss Ishiyama, but this is a crime scene and it’s my job to keep it safe. If you could back up – the tape line is here for a reason.”

Satisfied that his partner had the situation handled, Odd turned back towards the inside of the alley as a hand tapped on his shoulder. 

“Morning, Odd.” Jeremie Belpois smiled genuinely at the detective despite the possibility of macabre behind them. 

“Morning, Einstein!” Odd teased the young man, “How’s my favorite computer genius?”

Jeremie Belpois had joined the police force a year prior to Odd and Ulrich, first interning and then leading the department’s first computer forensics team. The detectives had taken to Jeremie immediately, a feeling not initially shared by the forensic technician, and frequently made attempts to include him in their weekly night at The Factory or a quiet night at their apartment with the lure of video games. Much to Jeremie’s surprise, he got along well with the two detectives, matching Odd’s sarcastic wit gibe for gibe and enjoying Ulrich’s quiet countenance for balance. 

“Not as good as you, I’m sure,” Jeremie replied, “I heard you two had gotten your own case, is that why you’re hungover?”

Odd shuffled his feet and glanced back at the dumpster where Herve continued to remove trash bags and place them on the ground. 

“How could you tell?” The detective asked guiltily. 

“You’re pale, you have bags under your eyes, and Ulrich has on sunglasses. It’s partly cloudy.”

Odd chuckled in response before Jeremie continued:

“I don’t blame you, your first case as detectives, it must be exciting. Next time invite me. I’ll turn the invitation down, but you know how much I love feeling involved.”

The detective opened his mouth to respond before Herve waived the two men over, his mouth set in a grim line. 

“Look in the bag,” Herve commanded, “but don’t touch.”

Odd and Jeremie exchanged a brief glance before both peeked into the bag that Herve was holding open. Inside, nestled one upon the other, were two bare calves that had been severed clean at the knees. The smell of old blood rolled Odd’s stomach and the young man swallowed the urge to gag. He quickly pressed the back of his wrist to his nose to subdue the smell and noted with grim satisfaction that Jeremie had done the same. 

“Jesus Christ, okay, double bag everything. I’m going to my patrol car to call it in.” Odd ordered and began to turn away.

 _Thud. Squelch._

There was a second of hesitation before gasps and screams erupted from the crowd. William and Ulrich’s eyes were wide, their gazes landing just behind Odd at Herve’s crouched form.

“The bag ripped, it ripped, I don’t know..” Herve attempted to shove the fallen body part back into the bag, but the damage had been done. Odd caught a glimpse of the severed head before it was hastily, and futilely, hidden from the shocked eyes of the crowd.

The face had been badly mangled, flesh swollen enough to render the features unrecognizable. Odd assumed the head belonged to a woman, with long blonde hair that had turned a nauseating copper from the blood pooling in the bag. The flesh, muscle, and veins had been sliced cleanly, but the C2 and C3 vertebrae were sticking out of the neck stump like a ham bone. He took a deep breath to steady himself before fixing Herve with a commanding glare. “Make sure that doesn’t happen again, we don’t need a media circus to go with human cutlets in a restaurant dumpster!”

“Get back, dammit!” Ulrich’s voice roared from the crowd. 

The reporter managed to side-step Ulrich and duck under the police tape, her notepad falling from under her armpit and onto the ground. 

“No, I think I know her! I think I know her – check behind her ear, is there a tattoo?!” 

Ulrich grabbed the woman by the arm and pulled her back towards the crowd, “Lady, get back!”

“Wait!” Odd shouted at him, then motioned for her to repeat herself, “What the hell did you just say?”

Ulrich dropped the woman’s arm, earning a malicious smile before she turned back towards Odd.

“Does she have a tattoo behind her left ear? A silhouette of a bird, an ibis.” 

“Check behind her left ear.” Odd commanded the forensic technicians.

Ulrich raised his arms in incredulity. “Odd, are you kidding? She’s a journalist, she needs to get behind the tape.” 

Jeremie nodded in agreement, “Odd, this is a crime scene, we can’t compromise it.”

He ignored Ulrich and motioned for Jeremie to continue checking. The forensic technician resignedly pulled the lip of the trash bag backwards and carefully brushed the hair aside, revealing a thick layer of congealed blood.

“Wipe the blood, can you see it?” Yumi asked again.

Jeremie wiped the blood from the corpse’s skin as carefully as he could, placing the gauze in individual evidence bags.

“I’ll be damned..” Herve muttered, his eyes darting over to Yumi before returning to the tattoo. 

Behind the left ear, exactly where Yumi had claimed it would be, was a small flash resembling the silhouette of an ibis. The congealed blood had stained her flesh a faint orange color that made the black ink stand out from the skin. 

_Click._

Odd winced as Yumi’s camera flash went off.

“Miss Ishiyama, I hope you don’t mind coming to the station with us,” His eyes never left the severed head, “I think we’re gonna have a few questions for you.” 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the hours of 11 to 1 the bullpen of the Boulogne-Billancourt precinct was what Ulrich fondly called a “ghost town”. For the officers, lunch was an excuse to enjoy La Ville Lumière; a moment of reprieve from the noise of the police station and a chance to chow down on food while taking their work outside. 

The brief hiatus of sound was something Ulrich looked forward to from the moment he stepped into work and missed sorely to the moment he left. It wasn’t that he hated his job, he felt secure in the knowledge that he was working to better the streets of Boulogne-Billancourt, but the toxic masculinity that ran rampant amongst the officers (something that trickled down from higher in the chain of command) reminded Ulrich of the family he had left behind after accepting the job. 

Admittedly Ulrich wasn’t the most in-tune with his feelings, as years of an unimpressible and calloused father figure had left him stunted in emotional intelligence, but the flippant nature of bigotry expressed by his fellow officers was something even he couldn’t ignore. He supposed that the volume of vice-related crimes they investigated lended themselves to conversations of a vulgar nature, but the lack of professionalism in ‘keeping their mouths shut’, as Odd put it, frayed the already fragile relationship between the police and the citizens they vowed to protect. 

Upon entering the bullpen Ulrich knew he would be nursing a noise induced migraine by the end of the work day. Almost all of the desks held occupants as word spread about the body parts they had found on Rue Gallieni, the chatter dying down briefly as the two detectives led an unimpressed Yumi Ishiyama towards the interrogation room. 

“Can we get you anything?” Odd asked as he settled in across from her at the table, “Water or coffee?”

Yumi shook her head and muttered a half-hearted thank you in response. 

Ulrich closed the door to the interrogation room and took his place next to Odd, opening his notepad and placing a file on the table in front of them. 

“Miss Ishiyama, before we get started I’d like to remind you that you are not being detained, that you are answering these questions of your own volition, and that you’re free to end this interview and leave at any time.” Ulrich said, scribbling down words as they left his mouth. 

When Yumi nodded in understanding he continued:

“This interview is being recorded for possible use of information down the road. Do you understand?” 

Yumi once again nodded and pulled out her notebook from the bag below the table.

“So, uh, Miss Ishiyama, how do you know the victim?” Ulrich asked as Odd leaned in conspiratorially, poised to ask the next question.

“Are you also a sex worker?” 

Ulrich kicked Odd’s shin and threw an apologetic grimace in Yumi’s direction. 

Her left eyebrow, he noticed, was perched higher than her right in a stare that challenged Odd from across the table. It reminded him of Aelita, soft at every edge but seemingly able to hold her own in the most dire of situations. Ulrich vaguely wondered if all women cocked their eyebrows when asked questions that pressed their boundaries, but tucked the thought away as quickly as it appeared. 

Suddenly, Yumi threw her head back and barked out an amused laugh, realizing that Odd was being completely serious. 

“No, of course not. Like I told you earlier I’m just a reporter for Kadic News.”

“Never heard of it. How do you know the victim - a Miss Maïtena-” 

“Lecuyer, 27 years of age, a sex worker from Sceaux, France,” Yumi interrupted, “I assume that folder contains her priors for solicitation. Did you know she had a daughter? Maïtena was taking night courses to get a better job, to better provide for her kid.”

Ulrich could read between the lines of Yumi’s words; Maïtena’s folder was another number dropped onto a detective’s desk, bound to get buried under a backlog of investigations and mountains of societal red tape. Sterile and factual, the folder left out the emotional weight of the woman’s death - the impact it carried for her family and friends. Yumi didn’t need to remind Ulrich of the inherent callousness that came with booking a prostitute overnight on charges of solicitation, let alone the city’s propensity to ignore their existence.

Yumi quickly pressed on when Ulrich stopped writing:

“I write exposé pieces for the newspaper, and at the moment I’m researching the treatment of sex workers by...police officers.” She cleared her throat, “Maïtena and I met in an online forum - it’s a place on the deep web where sex workers find clients. I asked her if she would be willing to provide information for me about her experiences - anonymously of course - and she said yes.”

“How long had the two of you been conversing?” Odd asked.

Yumi tilted her head pensively. 

“Probably two and a half weeks. Mostly over the forum and only while using a VPN and multiple key nodes.” 

Ulrich made a mental note to ask Jeremie what a VPN and key node were, later. 

“Did Miss Lecuyer have any enemies that you were aware of? Perhaps a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend?” Ulrich broached, hoping for a lead. 

“Not that I could tell. Maïtena was well known and liked within the sex work community here.”

“I have to ask, as you know the victim...” Odd started, “our forensics team puts her death anywhere from 24 to 36 hours ago as of this morning. You wouldn’t happen to know what you were doing around that time yesterday?”

Yumi’s countenance shifted from unconcerned to straight-backed by the time the sentence left Odd’s mouth. She rested her forearms on the level surface of the table and fixed the detectives with an accusatory glare. Ulrich’s eyes widened imperceptibly at the sudden change and he glanced down at his notebook, eager to avoid the heat in her eyes. 

“You’re trying to gauge whether I could be a person-of-interest. I’ll remind you that I chose to do this interview - _offered_ , actually!”

“Miss Ishiyama, it’s just a question and you can choose whether or not to answer it, you don’t need to-” 

A knock on the door stopped Odd mid-sentence and Ulrich rose from his seat to open it. Officer Dunbar stood hesitantly in the doorframe, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a woman here to see you, Ulrich.”

Behind Ulrich, Odd knitted his eyebrows together in wonder. 

“Uh...yeah, okay. Odd, can you take over the interview?”

Upon receiving a nod from his partner Ulrich followed William out and back through the bullpen. The other officers fell quiet again and eyed Ulrich as he made his way to the front of the police station. 

“She’s very nice, your, uh, girlfriend? Cagey, though.” William said before waving to the young woman in question.

Bright pink hair gave way to skin still marred with blues and blacks as Aelita turned her head in their direction. Her small frame fit cozily in the lobby chair, legs tucked under her with her arms bracing both armrests. Her face relaxed upon Ulrich’s arrival, but her posture remained tense and cautious as she stood up.

“Thanks, William.” Ulrich dismissed the officer, “Aelita, what are you doing here? Are you alright?”

The young woman smiled and nodded, chuckling at Ulrich’s concern.  
A knot in the pit of his stomach unclenched as he took in her presence. Her countenance was different from the night before, softer and more open, likely a side effect of being in the police station willingly rather than being booked. He noticed, however, her hesitation as the other officers watched her, following the pair’s interaction with hawk eyes. 

“I’m okay, I promise!” She gently took his hand, “What your partner said last night, about filing a report, he’s right. If I can protect other people, I should. Especially other women involved.”

The pair were interrupted by the click-clack of heels on the tile floor followed by the softer tap of oxfords. 

Odd sidled up to Ulrich with Yumi stopping a couple of paces away. 

“Ulrich, we’re done with the interview - oh, Aelita. Are you alright, why are you here?”

Aelita centered Odd with a funny look, as if unsure what to make of the concern the two men were showing her, before sliding her eyes over to Yumi.

“Miss Ishiyama...what’re you doing here?” The pink haired woman asked.

Yumi nodded in acknowledgement, “Just taking care of something. How are you doing?”

The detectives glanced between the two women. 

“I’m sorry,” Odd started, attempting to pick his jaw up off of the floor, “you two know each other?”

The silent look that passed between the women told Ulrich all he needed to know about their relationship; in the same way that Yumi and Maïtena were connected, so were Yumi and Aelita - she was another source for the journalist’s newspaper endeavours. 

“I’m really sorry, about Maïtena,” Yumi broached, “I know you knew each other. She spoke highly of you.”

Aelita’s face twisted in confusion as she glanced between the three in front of her. 

“Sorry? What do you mean, what happened?” 

Ulrich’s stomach clenched again. 

Aelita knew Maïtena, was possibly close to Maïtena, and this was how she was finding out about her death. When both Yumi and the detectives hesitated her voice became desperate.

“I haven’t seen her in a week and a half...I didn’t think it was unusual, sometimes we go days without talking...she’d stopped hooking, I just thought she was busy with her daughter, I…”

Yumi looked to the detectives for help. “I am _so sorry_ , Aelita, I thought that’s why you were here, I didn’t..”

Odd rested the palm of his hand flat between Yumi’s shoulder blades, guiding her towards the front doors of the station. 

“Thank you, Miss Ishiyama, you’ve been a great help,” His voice had a sarcastic bite to it, “but as you can see we need to conduct more interviews.”

The pink haired woman seemed on the verge of fainting, her hands shaking and tears welling in her eyes. It cemented in Ulrich’s brain the fact that she was still young, still scared, still vulnerable - even for a 25 year old sex worker. 

“Come on Aelita,” Ulrich guided her towards the bullpen, “let’s go to the interview room, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yumi being a journalist that focuses on societal issues just makes sense to me. 
> 
> Are the trigger warnings at the beginning too much or are they helpful?
> 
> As always, the biggest of thank you's to EpsilonTarantula on AO3/FF.net and @/caleblegend_ on twitter!


	4. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Description of brutal violence and bodily trauma (including blood)  
> 2\. Non-graphic descriptions of sex work  
> 3\. Negative views of police officers  
> 4\. Mentions of alcohol and getting drunk  
> 5\. Gratuitous use of the words 'fuck', 'shit', and 'whore', both in english and french

Yumi Ishiyama had never considered herself a bad person. Cold and distant? Perhaps. Brutally honest? Most definitely. Compartmentalizing her emotions when it came to work ethic was her specialty, and no situation was the exception. By the time her pumps hit the pavement outside the station she had managed to stifle the guilt of Aelita’s tear stained face far into her subconscious; after all, she had a job to do.

“Yumi, that better be you and you better have a good excuse as to why you’re late!” 

Yumi raised both an eyebrow and the cup of coffee she was holding. 

“Don’t I always get you what you want, Tamiya? Be it story or coffee?”

Tamiya Diop had launched Kadic News out of her one-bedroom apartment in Clichy; a mixed-use building with a rental unit above a small café. The editor had turned her living room into a communal office space for herself, Yumi, and a third writer. The kitchen and bathroom were a godsend on work days that turned into nights, and the large living room window overlooking the busy street below provided a reprieve from the stifling summer air.

“Coffee is only half an excuse for being _four_ hours late.” Tamiya’s disapproving tone didn’t stop her from snatching the coffee from Yumi’s hand.

“I know. By the way, the flics are gonna call you and ask for an alibi.”

Yumi sat down at her desk, pulling out her camera and notebook.

“I’m sorry... _why_ are they going to ask for an alibi? Do I want to know?” Tamiya’s eyebrows were perched high on her forehead.

Journalism had been the last thing on Yumi’s radar after completing her licence in Literature Studies. The tabloids and gossip rags that lined every wall of the local shops had no appeal - after all, what was the point of spreading lies about the rich and famous when the truth was much darker? It had taken a lot of convincing from Tamiya before Yumi agreed to write her first article, finally relenting when the editor reminded her that they _“were flatmates at the University of Paris!”_

After a week of failed ideas scribbled on Post-it notes, coffee cups piling up in the bin by her new desk, and several half-hearted threats to quit the job, Yumi decided to research sex trafficking for a new column Tamiya wanted to test-run in Kadic’s Newspaper. The column was devoted to factual exposés of topics the more popular news outlets refused to cover; the prevalence of drug and sex trafficking in Paris’ underground night club scene, shoddy landlords skiving off of repairs and the benefits of tenants’ unions, and most recently a banking CEO funneling funds to offshore accounts under the radar. 

Her first article, titled _“How Profits from Parisian Playhouses Exploit the Vulnerable”_ , had incited a (begrudging) police raid, emancipating twelve girls and locking up five men. The results were like a drug to Yumi, the high spurring her to dive into the dark underworld she had discovered. 

“Maïtena Lecuyer, my source for the article I’m working on...she was killed yesterday.” She connected her camera to her computer and pulled up the photos, leaning back so Tamiya could see. 

Tamiya let out a soft gasp, hesitating before leaning forward for a better look. “Holy fuck, that’s disgusting. How did you get these photos?”

Yumi swiveled in her chair to face her editor. “I ID’d the body - I was walking to the métro and there were a bunch of flics on Rue Gallieni.”

Tamiya’s eyebrows rose impossibly higher as she glanced between the woman in front of her and the photos of the crime scene.

“Holy _fuck_ , are you okay?”

Yumi turned back to her computer.

“I’ll live, but I’ve definitely got a brand new article to write,” She smirked, “and probably a few more enemies at the police station.”

The publishing of her first article had forced the hand of the police Captain, Jean Pierre Delmas, to conduct a raid on the nightclub Yumi had exposed. The precinct had sat on anonymous tips for months, citing what Yumi coined ‘bureaucratic bullshit’ as their excuse for inaction. The morning the article went live Tamiya had received a nasty phone call from the Captain - reading Kadic News the riot act and threatening to arrest everyone involved. For two weeks after, Tamiya went so far as to check their phones for bugs, insisting that a plain-clothes officer had been loitering outside their building.

The editor gave Yumi a toothy grin before turning towards the kitchen, stopping to throw a quip over her shoulder, “Hope I get visited by some attractive detectives this time, the last ones were perfectly geriatric! Oh, by the way, Hiroki called you this morning.”

Yumi sighed, her posture deflating as she slumped down in the desk chair. 

Tamiya, of course, noticed, flashing a sympathetic smile. “I know you feel like you have nothing to say, but I think _him_ calling _you_ is a good sign.”

The last time she had seen her brother in person played in her mind like an old film reel; details were fuzzy, bits and pieces had been spliced out, and the order was almost entirely wrong. Trying to put the events in the right place caused a painful twinge in her heart.

University forged an emotional cavern between Yumi and her family. Her second year she attained a job and picked up as many shifts as she could, often forcing her to study through the night to keep her grades up; for this reason the details of her parents’ divorce never really reached her and she didn’t really have the time to inquire.

It hadn’t become clear to her that things were out of control in her old home until she came for a surprise weekend visit. 

_“Where are you going?”_

_Akiko looked up from the suitcase on the bed, eyes wide._

_“Yumi, when did you get here?”_

_“Mom! Should I pack my winter coa-” Hiroki hit Yumi with the door as he tried to come inside, “Yumi.”_

_Three suitcases. Two for Akiko, one for Hiroki. They had already called a cab to take them to the airport._

_“You can’t just leave, where the hell is dad? Does he know you’re leaving?” Yumi demanded of them._

_“I want Hiroki to meet my family, I want him to know them. I want to get out of Paris.”_

_It turned out Takeo had known they were leaving. That night, Yumi waited on the sofa in the living room, staring blankly at the wall, until her father got home from work. In typical Ishiyama fashion there was no conversation, no heart-to-heart about what Yumi walked in on that afternoon. They ordered takeout, she couldn’t remember from where, and watched the news until Takeo told her he’d be travelling more for his job at Takahashi._

_“This is still your home, Yumi. You’re welcome to live here when you finish at university.”_

Their family had never been one for ‘I love you’; or ‘goodbye’ for that matter. In the end, Yumi had taken her dad’s offer to live in the two-bedroom apartment that the rest of the family had left behind. 

After that, Tamiya quickly became the closest thing to family Yumi had left in Paris. If she dwelled on that too much guilt began to build up in her chest - in a way, the editor had filled the hole that her family left behind. 

Yumi snatched a notepad from the corner of her desk and scribbled down a quick note:

 ** _Call Hiroki after work_**.

“Yumi?”

The Japanese woman looked up, yanking herself out of the painful memories. “Yeah, uh...I’ll call him tonight when I get home.”

Tamiya seemed satisfied with that answer and went back to preparing lunch. 

_Ding!_

A notification for the sex work forum lit up her monitor screen and she scrolled over to the homepage.

Finding out about the forums sex workers used to find clients was a godsend for Yumi. Months of undercover work in filthy underground nightclubs - forced to rub elbows with the sleaziest men in Paris - had taken its toll on the woman, and after the publication of the article she took a brief sabbatical to clear her head. She was merely a temporary voyeur into a life of iniquity that left women in a vicious cycle of drugs, sex, and violence; it didn’t escape her that the very sex workers she was interviewing would never have the privilege of sabbatical from their work. 

This way was better, she told herself. No more nights spent dodging the advances of drunken men in dark rooms with flashing lights. No more scrubbing her skin raw at 2 a.m., trying to get the imagined filth of those places off of her.

New messages blinked onto her screen as nameless and faceless clientele posted their requests of company for the night, all hidden behind proxy servers and TOR browsers to keep their indiscretion behind closed doors. Yumi’s own account remained mostly dormant, sans the conversations she kept with Maïtena, Aelita, and two other women. She found it more conducive to sit back and watch the activity on the forum to get a better understanding, a look into the inner workings, of an illicit transaction. 

Yumi would never tell Tamiya that on some nights, deep into the early hours of the morning, the watching became a masochistic punishment for her callousness as she scanned the forum and prayed the women she was using for information got home safely. 

She quickly shook herself from her thoughts and ran her hands through her hair. 

_‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself,’_ She thought, _‘this is what Aelita goes through every day...what Maïtena went through...and you don’t hear them whining.’_

The thought didn’t make her feel any better. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Looking good today, Sissi!”

“Baby, over here!”

“Come on, give us a smile!”

Wolf whistles and catcalls followed the raven haired woman through the bullpen as she made her way towards the forensics hall. The click of her stilettos slowed imperceptibly as she debated quipping something crass back at the men, but she quickly decided against it. Afterall, it was better to deny them the satisfaction. 

Elisabeth Delmas, affectionately nicknamed “Sissi” by those around her, wasn’t the only woman working the justice system of Boulogne-Billancourt, but she was (according to the officers at the station) the most sought after. Elisabeth wasn’t naive to her looks, far from it. Her presence commanded the attention of most men, let alone a handful of glorified, testosterone-fueled, watch dogs hyped up on their own power trip. Other women in her position would balk at the treatment she received, but Elisabeth usually didn’t mind.

Her father, on the other hand, did. A flip of her hair, a dark shade of rouge lipstick, and a short pencil skirt milked information out of the officers that she might never be privy to otherwise. Sure she sometimes wished her title as City Prosecutor - and not the size of her bust - was enough to secure respect, but seeing her father silently stew in anger behind the closed door of his office was a reward in itself. It carried the same rebellious weight that had come with her first boyfriend, first piercing, first tattoo - and when she chose law as her profession, rather than something domestic like her father had suggested (begged); his frustration had only spurred her on.

She peered through the window to the forensics lab. Detectives Stern and Della Robbia had beaten her there, unsurprisingly, and were speaking in hushed tones to Jeremie Belpois. 

“I had assumed you three were going to wait until I showed up,” She said, stalking into the lab and grabbing a medical mask, “but you know what they say about assumptions.”

“Wouldn’t even _dream_ of starting without you, Madame Procureur, but for future reference, being on time might help.” Jeremie snarked back, his voice dripping with disdain as though she had disrupted the sanctity of hallowed ground.

“Always a grand entrance with you, Elisabeth.” Odd quipped.

The prosecutor sidled up between the detectives and eyed the lumps that bulged through the sheet on the examination table. 

“Hey, Sissi.” Ulrich said, smiling warmly at the woman. 

Ulrich joining the force had been a breath of fresh air for Elisabeth. Not only was he handsome (in a lost, quiet way) and perfectly fit (in her “expert” opinion), but sincere and vehemently respectful, as well. Where the other officers were crass and belligerent, Ulrich took the time to get to know the victims, the suspects, and eventually the city prosecutor. 

His proposition for dinner after work one Friday night had sent her over the moon. It went well enough, but two dates later revealed that the pair was just too different, wanting different things out of life and love. Elisabeth, much to her honest discredit, needed a man she could push around, and Ulrich was too obstinate for that role. 

“Hey, you.” She replied, ignoring Odd’s obvious eye-roll. So what if a relationship was off the table, flirting wasn’t against the rules as far as she was concerned.

“This is Maïtena Lecuyer, twenty-seven years of age, prostitute. She was found dismembered in a dumpster on Rue Gallieni.” Jeremie pointed to the examination table with a tone that implied the pleasantries were over.

“You ran prints?” The prosecutor asked.

Jeremie and Odd exchanged hesitant glances. “Well...they’re still checking. A civilian actually identified the body at the scene.”

“A civilian?”

“Yeah, Herve dropped the head in the alley and a reporter recognized it.” Odd explained, quickly. 

She tossed her head back and barked out an amused laugh. “A reporter? Herve dropped the head? Great, how much damage control am I going to need on this one, boys?”

She felt Ulrich poke her in the ribs, his way of telling her to calm down.

“The body parts were found in separate bags in the dumpster,” Jeremie continued, “we found almost every part of her corpse, except her right hand and left thumb, pointer, and middle finger.”

Elisabeth’s chest heaved with a preparatory breath as Jeremie gently removed the sheet, but the sight brought bile to her throat, regardless.

Even to a seasoned city prosecutor the sight was macabre. Beaten, mutilated, and decapitated, the body lay in several parts on the examination table, recreated as a human corpse to the best of Jeremie’s ability. Maïtena’s skin was as white as the sheet she had been covered in and littered with bruises and blood stains that reminded Elisabeth of the galaxies in her science textbooks from primary school. 

Next to her, Ulrich bristled and turned his head away while Odd muttered a string of choice swears. 

“It’s one thing seeing the body in the alley; it’s another seeing it all together on the table like this.” The blond detective said.

Despite their growth as officers and subsequent promotion to detectives, certain parts of their personalities remained the same. Ulrich had never had a strong stomach when it came to violence - particularly against women. Something about it shut him down more than usual, especially when he had to see the bodies. The particularly disturbing cases would make his eyes go glassy with a faraway stare, telling Elisabeth that he wasn’t in the room with them anymore, rather somewhere deep inside his own head.

Unsurprisingly, Odd was the exact opposite. A quick snoop into his file and a peek at his psychological report told her he had a paramedic’s disposition - the demands of the job had desensitized him to violence and gore. Even a long debriefing in Jeremie’s lab couldn’t deter Odd from chowing down on a turkey sandwich at lunch; the man had a stomach made of steel.

“As you can see..,” Jeremie started, pointing towards the head, “she was decapitated.”

Odd attempted to cover up his snort with a fake cough, receiving a glare from both Jeremie and Ulrich.

“All of the limb severing was done post-mortem - after death. You can tell by the lack of circulation around the stumps.”

“Possibly to make her easier to dispose of.” Ulrich offered. 

Jeremie nodded and pointed towards what was left of the woman’s neck. “See the ligature marks around here? Cause of death could have been strangulation, but because of the damage to her face we can’t rule out blunt force trauma, either.”

“So you can’t give an exact answer?” Elisabeth reiterated.

“Unfortunately, no. My job is easier under 24 hours after death. Best guess is strangulation.”

Elisabeth scanned the rest of the body as Jeremie continued his briefing. The body’s separation reminded the prosecutor of a yet to be assembled mannequin. Her mind wandered to the ones in the store windows on Rue Gallieni, a collection of grey and white figures, still as stone, with fabric hanging off of them like curtains. The image of Maïtena’s lifeless body shattering into doll-like pieces as it hit the ground jolted her and she blinked in a futile attempt to get the image out of her head.

“Wait, what’s that?” Odd asked, cutting Jeremie off mid-sentence. 

“You have the attention span of a fly.” Ulrich chastised under his breath.

In the middle of Maïtena’s torso, between her breasts, was a symbol cut into her skin. Similar to the severed parts of her body, the cuts were meticulous and deliberate; not only even in depth and width, but also in placement. The middle circle was centered exactly on her body and encompassed by two concentric rings, with four lines extended from the outermost ring: one on top, reaching towards her clavicles, and three on bottom, two pointing to both sides of her ribs and the center line towards her bellybutton. 

“I was getting there,” Jeremie snapped, “but since you mentioned it - I’m not sure.”

In the two years the prosecutor had known the forensic technician he had never even uttered the possibility of not knowing an answer to something. He was insufferably brilliant in ways she couldn’t fathom and had a habit of flaunting it. Hell, his nickname was Einstein; Jeremie not knowing the answer was new territory to all of them, let alone Jeremie.

“What, you mean you haven’t looked yet?” Odd asked.

“I had Herve reverse search the image and nothing came up. It would seem that the carving is unique to this body.”

“Was this done after death, too, Jeremie?” Elisabeth cut in.

There was a heavy silence as Jeremie shook his head. “Tissue samples showed blood circulation after the wound. It was done while she was alive.”

The implications of that statement took Elisabeth’s breath away. Was Maïtena awake when the carving happened? Was it meant to torture and mark her? Could it be some sort of sick calling card?

Ulrich was the first to break the silence. “We’ll send the image to the other precincts in Paris; see if they’ve seen anything like this before. Jer, can you send us the photos of Aelita Hopper’s wounds that you took today? We can use them for comparison to Maïtena’s.” 

“Yeah, of course.”

The detectives and prosecutor thanked Jeremie and left, tossing their masks in the bin on the way out.

“Ulrich, hang on.” Elisabeth grabbed the man’s arm, stopping him. Odd glanced back before continuing on towards the bullpen.

In the brighter hallway lighting Ulrich looked rough. His face was gaunt and pale, making the dark circles under his eyes look like poorly drawn, blue, bruises. His slow reaction to her concerned look suggested he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for several days; his crinkled shirt, loose tie, and day-old beard stubble cemented that idea.

“You look like shit.” Elisabeth offered, pushing both of them closer to the wall as an officer passed through.

The pair shared a knowing glance and Ulrich managed a soft chuckle. 

“Just having an off week, Sissi. I’ll be alright.”

Candid conversations about Ulrich’s emotions were a rarity. The detective preferred to keep everything bottled inside until he could release the pent up anger, sadness, and frustration on the punching bag in the precinct’s gym. Elisabeth had seen the aftermath of what Odd lovingly called ‘Ulrich’s Vent Sessions’, and it wasn’t something she’d soon forget - she had been the one to bandage his bruised, bloodied, and possibly broken hands.

Jean Pierre had labeled him reckless in a performance review, once. It wasn’t hard to see why.

“Don’t bullshit me, Stern.”

The detective hesitated. “I’ve never seen so much blood in my life, Sissi. Never seen a body chopped up like that. I mean, on T.V., but that doesn’t count.”

“Yeah, you never forget the first time you pop your murder cherry.” 

The joke elicited a look of disgust from the man and Elisabeth giggled. 

“I don’t understand how someone could be so sick, so messed up in the head that they’d do that to a woman. Did you know she had a kid? A little girl!”

Ulrich’s stoic mask was beginning to slip, his countenance inching towards desperation the faster he spoke.

She offered a brief smile, knowing exactly where the detective was coming from. 

Elisabeth had tried her first homicide case at the tender age of twenty-four. She was young and naive and nowhere near prepared to see the evils lurking within the human psyche. A brilliant technician named Suzanne Hertz had been in charge of Boulogne-Billancourt’s forensics lab at the time, and had caught Elisabeth moments before she hit the floor in a dead faint after witnessing her first autopsy. Finding the killer hadn’t been hard, but charging him was a different story. In the end, the man was ruled not-guilty by the Magistrate; Elisabeth’s case against him hadn’t been strong enough. The loss was discouraging and sent the woman into a brief spiral, questioning her own skills as a prosecutor.

“Come on, Ulrich. We have the two best detectives on the case. Not to mention the sexiest city prosecutor in Boulogne-Billancourt.”

“The _only_ prosecutor in Boulogne-Billancourt.” He quipped back.

Her teasing lured a genuine smile out of the man and Elisabeth felt her cheeks dimple in return.

“I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt, you know?” Ulrich muttered in confession.

Elisabeth knew, possibly better than most. Protecting people was the shared premise of their job descriptions. Being bad at their job wasn’t an option when someone could get hurt or even die. It was a lot of responsibility even on the best of days. 

“I should get back to work.” Ulrich said, pulling her into his chest for a hug.

“Alright. Keep me updated on the case, I’ll start preparing paperwork.”

The two parted, Ulrich towards his desk and Elisabeth towards the front doors. 

“Leaving so soon, pretty girl?” An officer called as she pushed the exit door.

This time she didn’t hesitate to throw up her middle finger over her shoulder.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Honk! Hoooooonk! HONK!_

“Get out of the fucking road, putain!”

_‘Get out of your head...pay attention, you’re walking, keep walking, merde!’_

Had it only been three hours since she left the precinct? 

_“I’m so sorry, Aelita, Maïtena’s gone.”_

_“Can you tell us from the beginning what happened to you two nights ago?”_

_“Okay, turn your face to the left. We’re going to document the bruises for the police report.”_

The past twenty-four hours played back in Aelita’s brain like a bad movie, her head reeling from the emotional whiplash. She was sure she’d spoken more today than she had in her entire life, a culmination of explanations, over explanations, and repeated questions she knew were meant to trip her up. If they weren’t asking about her, they were asking about Maïtena. If they weren’t asking about Maïtena, they were asking about sex work. In that room everything seemed stretched; time, frustration, her patience - it wore thinner the longer she spoke.

Detective Stern had praised her, repeatedly, for coming forward.

_“All the information you’ve given us will help; we’re going to find whoever did this, okay?”_

It hadn’t struck her until later that the police report was meaningless. No matter how well intentioned her decision was, Maïtena was dead. No amount of detective work would bring her back.

Aelita glanced at the address scribbled on her arm then up at the apartment building in front of her. The building was tucked away in an alley that led to a surprisingly kempt and clean courtyard behind the main road. The actual apartments didn’t look like much; a rundown collection of duplexes all glued together, connected by hallways that reminded her of the inside of an anthill. 

“302...302...302…” The pink haired woman muttered repeatedly, climbing the stairs to the third floor. 

At least one thing had gone her way, today, she mused: the woman she was looking for had just come home, struggling to get her key in the door with one hand while balancing groceries in the other. 

“Do you need help with that?” Aelita asked.

Yumi promptly yelped in surprise and dropped everything she was holding. “Fucking hell, Jesus Christ...Aelita? Merde, you scared me.”

“I’m sorry. There wasn’t really a good way to approach you.” 

The Japanese woman bent down to collect her things.

“Jesus, how the hell did you find my apartment?”

_‘I used your IP address to access your Amazon account and find your shipping and billing information, also by the way you should probably choose stronger passwords for your email and Facebook, it was disturbingly easy to hack you and find out so much about you, you really need to be more careful.’_

“I’m, er, good with computers.”

Yumi hesitated, nodded, and fumbled with her keys. 

It was strange seeing the reporter in real life. The two had only met in person once before; a coffee shop in Clichy where Yumi insisted on buying Aelita two chocolate croissants and a steaming cup of milky, vanilla, coffee so caffeinated it had her legs bouncing for at least an hour afterwards. The rest of their conversations took place online, hidden under the surface of the dark web, disguised by aliases and code words. It all felt very cryptic and allusive until that thin facade was shattered in person. Aelita noted pettily that the woman in front of her seemed ready to bolt rather than face a difficult truth: her subject was a tangible person and not an abstract idea meant to launch newspaper sales. 

“I really am sorry about earlier at the station. I didn’t know that you...you know...didn’t know,” Yumi said, pulling Aelita from her thoughts, “if there’s anything I can do, feel free to let me know.”

“There is, actually,” Aelita rushed, stopping Yumi as she went to unlock her door again, “something I need help with.” 

Aelita waited until Yumi motioned for her to elaborate, “I managed to find which youth shelter they took Nathalie, Maïtena’s daughter, to...and I was hoping to check up on her, make sure she was okay.”

Yumi raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Alright...how am I supposed to help?”

The pink haired woman motioned to her own dyed locks and battered visage. “I don’t exactly look presentable, you know? I don’t think they’d let me in. I was hoping you’d go in for me.”

Yumi’s continued hesitation spurred Aelita on. If she could do it on her own, she would, even preferred, but as it stood now she needed the reporter’s help.

“Please. You’ve used all of the information I’ve given you for your articles, and you get paid for that - I don’t. It’s the least you could do in return.”

The reporter finally unlocked her door and leaned against it, shoulders slumping downwards. The silence stretched on for too long and Aelita began turning away, ready to storm out.

“Ugh, alright, wait.” Yumi stopped her reluctantly, “You’re right. Help me with these groceries and we’ll go.”

Fifteen minutes and two métro lines later the two women stood side by side in front of the Clichy Youth Centre, a large white building with bars on the upper windows and a security guard out front. The only thing that even hinted that the building was meant for youth were the three cement alphabet blocks outside of the entrance that seemingly served as the centre’s street bollards. 

“Are you sure this isn’t a prison?” Yumi asked, “Because it looks like a prison.”

The sentiment made Aelita’s heart ache. Not only had Nathalie lost her mother, violently, to some nameless and faceless heinous bastard, but now she was stuck in this prison-like building with bars on her windows waiting to hear her fate at the hands of Parisian social workers. 

_‘And I was complaining about my previous twenty-four hours.’_

“Okay, Nathalie Lecuyer, with a ‘th’ not a ‘t’. She’s six. She has blonde hair like her mum.”

Yumi nodded and parted from Aelita, heading into the building. The inside wasn’t as sterile as she had initially thought, and she felt bad suggesting the idea that it was a prison. The floors near the entrance were made of brown tile that quickly gave way to even browner carpet. From the reception desk Yumi could make out posters, artwork, and bulletin boards that seemed to belong to the children; little drawings of stick figure families, coloring pages, and writing adorned the walls leading down the hallway where she could hear the echo of children playing and a custodian switching on a vacuum. 

“Bonsoir, puis-je vous aider?” The receptionist asked.

Yumi quickly plastered on a smile in an attempt to calm her nerves. 

“Oui, bonsoir...erm, I’m trying to find a girl who was brought in, her name is Nathalie Lecuyer,” remembering Aelita’s prompt she amended, “it’s with a ‘th’, not just a ‘t’.”

“Are you a relative?” The receptionist asked, “You’ll need to sign that sheet saying you were a visitor today. Can I get your name?”

“My name?” Yumi glanced through the front windows at Aelita, who was now sitting on one of the cement blocks by the road, then scribbled the woman’s name onto the sign-in sheet, “Erm, Aelita Hopper. I’m not family, I’m good friends with...sorry, I _was_ good friends with Nathalie’s mother, Maïtena.”

A sympathetic look passed over the receptionist’s face and Yumi wondered how much pity a six-year-old orphan could take before it got old. Hell, she wasn’t sure how much pity she could take, and she was twenty-seven.

“I’m sorry, we can only let family in and they have to have a valid driver’s licence that we can match on file. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

The guilt Yumi had been squashing down all day broke free and washed over her, icing her stomach, lungs, and heart. The one thing Aelita asked of her, the one thing that could have made her day, or at least lightened some of the heartbreak, and Yumi couldn’t even deliver that. 

“No, that’s okay, I understand.”

The receptionist stopped the reporter before she turned to the door. 

“She’s doing better today. She ate a little bit and played with the other children in the group. Obviously she asks for her mother a lot, but we have a trained counseling staff here that’s meant to help. She’s in really good hands.”

The guilt abated, ever so slightly.

“Merci beaucoup, au revoir.”

Keeping her face as neutral as possible she strode back over to Aelita, motioning for her to scoot over so they could both sit down. The pink haired woman pulled a packet of cigarettes and lighter from her jacket pocket. 

“Can I bum one?” Yumi asked.

Both women lit their cigarettes and took a few deep drags, their silence interrupted only by the sound of cars and people moving past them. “So,” Aelita started, flicking the steadily forming ash off of her cigarette, “they didn’t let you in to see her.”

Yumi exhaled the smoke through her nose in a heavy sigh. “No, they didn’t.”

For the first time that evening a comfortable silence settled over the two women as Paris’ streets turned pink and orange under the sunset. Around them people chattered and laughed, making their way home after a long day of work and school; their lives uninterrupted - unmarred - by a slowly blooming darkness simmering just under the surface of the city’s thin veneer. Aelita could feel it, as if it was her own blood simmering. She had spent enough time in Paris, combing the streets, to know what it felt like when the world - her world - was about to be turned upside down. She had been too late to save Maïtena from whatever evil was lurking around shadowy corners, hoping to prey on vulnerable women as they struggled to survive, and she wasn’t going to let it happen to anyone else.

Next to her, the raven haired woman stubbed out the remnants of her cigarette, getting to her feet and shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other while holding out a hand to Aelita.

“Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Aelita asked as they crossed the street towards the métro. 

Yumi flashed a genuine grin, out of place for her typically stoic demeanor, and chuckled as they went slowly down, down, down, into the cold atrium of the station. 

“We’ve had a long day. We’re going to go dance and get drunk.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boulevard de Clichy was the proverbial street that never slept. Night and day were nearly the same: tourists, addicts, voyeurs, and all-around degenerates made their way to the boulevard searching for mankind’s original vice: sex. 

Around the corner, nestled between a handful of XXX shops, was a small cement stairwell that led down into a forgotten and bricked up part of the underground métro. A black door was all that stood between Club Lyoko and those who sought entrance; an underground dance club serviced by strippers and prostitutes alike, the clientele made up of wealthy bankers, police captains, politicians, and much more. It wasn’t a well-known spot, even to those who spent hundreds on the boulevard, but it suited its niche group of clients' needs all the same. 

“Damn keys...” A woman muttered as she struggled to lock the solid black door. Laura hated working the closing shift at the club. She may have been higher up on the food chain than the girls who danced or stripped, but she still didn’t get a say in her time slots. Bartending into the wee hours of the morning was a nightmare, and having to force the straggling, drunken, perverts out after last call was even worse. Then, of course, there was the cleaning, and the wiping down, and the making sure all of the girls got their tips. Laura wasn’t naive, she knew what these girls did on other nights, and she felt sorry for them; but herding them after a long night was like herding a clowder of cats...if those cats were sweaty, donning high heels, and covered in glitter. 

_‘Goddamn door!'_ She thought as the key jammed in the lock once again, _‘How many fucking times do I have to ask them to fix it!’_

Footsteps behind her, slowly moving down the stairs, only served to aggravate the woman further. 

“We’re closed. Last call was forty fucking minutes ago, okay? Bugger off.”

From the corner of her eye she waited to see if the figure would turn and leave, when it didn’t she whipped around to face it. 

“Look, man, we are _closed_ , okay? Do you know what that-”

“Laura Gauthier.” The figure interrupted. Laura squinted her eyes against the street lights behind him, but couldn’t see past the shadows cast over his face.

Most women, if not all, who worked at the club were advised to use an alias - a stage name - to protect their identity during the daylight hours. Even as a bartender Laura used an alias, and hearing her full name from a stranger in the vicinity of her workplace was jarring.

In one fell swoop the figure grabbed her, spun her around, and pushed a knife to her throat. The tickle of beard stubble against her ear as he spoke caused her to squirm her head away.

“First of all, I don’t appreciate the tone you took with me...little girls shouldn’t use such foul language.”

Laura struggled, “I’m twenty-six you freak, let go of me! I don’t have any cash on me, okay? I don’t have any money!”

The man chuckled and dug the knife deeper into her throat, a droplet of blood forming and trickling down towards her collarbone.

_‘Please don’t let me die here, please don’t let me die here…’_

“No, Mademoiselle Gauthier, I don’t want your money. I want information. Information that I know you have.”

The man held a paper in front of Laura. 

“This woman. She works here, doesn’t she? Tell me where I can find her.”

Laura squinted at the photo, desperately trying to make out what it was so the man would let her go. That’s when she recognized it - the pink hair, wide green eyes, and innocent smile were a dead giveaway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like my rendition of Sissi. I know she's _very_ OOC in this, but they are older, this is an AU, and I never bought into the idea of female characters being antagonistic love interests. (NO hate to the OG show, just my opinion on how female characters are typically written!)
> 
> If you're interested in seeing some art I've done for BMR and music that inspired some of the scenes, or interested in learning about a new fan-graphic novel called Code Lyoko: Reloaded by me, head on over to codelyokoreloaded.tumblr.com!
> 
> As always a BIG thank you to EpsilonTarantula on FF.net/AO3, @/caleblegend_ on twitter, and my roommate CJ for their help in making this fic happen!
> 
> And thanks to everyone who has left kudos and kind words so far! I can't wait to get the next chapter out to you guys!


	5. Blitzkrieg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Description of brutal violence and bodily trauma (including blood)  
> 2\. Non-graphic descriptions of sex work  
> 3\. Negative views of police officers  
> 4\. Mentions of alcohol/getting drunk and use of tobacco  
> 5\. Racial and sexist slurs

The early morning brought a gentle hum to the station as officers and dispatchers slowly shuffled in; the last remnants of sleep yet to be wiped from their eyes as the thought of subpar precinct coffee carried them to the break room. Ulrich had managed a head start, if pulling an all-nighter could be considered a head start, and was leaning against the sink nursing his second cup of pitch black, steaming hot, sludge. 

“Is coffee all you’ve been living on this week, ‘Rich?” Odd teased, brushing past to snatch a cup from the cupboard.

Ulrich eyed the other man over the lip of his mug. “Yeah, well, someone kept me up all night examining bruise pattern consistency.”

In all fairness, the night hadn’t been wasted; the pair, under Jeremie’s watchful gaze, had made considerable progress cataloguing the extent of damage on both Aelita and Maïtena, charting the differences and similarities between them. Jeremie’s tutelage was exhausting but invaluable, straying into the early hours of the morning long after the first custodian had clocked in to empty the bins. 

“It’s Friday, you can sleep in tomorrow.” Odd quipped back. 

The bustle of three more officers opening the break room door drew the detectives’ attention and Ulrich sighed inwardly. 

The detectives got along well with the other officers, or at least Odd did. Ulrich preferred to hang back, making idle conversation when necessary and humoring Odd at the precinct bar crawls once a month. Besides Odd, Ulrich didn’t have many friends at the station - or enemies; or so he thought. Officer Nicolas Poliakoff had engaged Ulrich in a one-sided rivalry from day one, pulling infantile pranks and quipping the detective at every opportunity. It was hard to ignore the simmering anger under his skin when Nicolas was in the room and Odd had to frequently remind him not to get bent out of shape over the petty words of a man _“built like a tortilla chip with a butt chin and one solved case”_. Ulrich really didn’t know what he’d do without his partner. 

“Look at this,” Nicolas held up a newspaper to the other two officers, “this fucking filth. How’d she even get these photos?”

Ulrich’s stomach twisted as he recognized the typeface on the front page. Nicolas was clutching a copy of Kadic News, and Ulrich needn’t guess who the article had been written by. Yumi Ishiyama had mentioned Kadic to them the day prior during her interview, but neither Odd nor Ulrich had heard of the newspaper, and for good reason; it was a small, homegrown publication making next to no profit from a niche group of cult followers. 

“Shit,” Odd hissed under his breath, “where the hell did he even find that rag? Kadic has an audience of four people, and one of them writes for the damned thing.”

Ulrich stifled a chuckle, setting down his empty mug.

“ _The discovery of a sex worker’s body Wednesday morning, nearly thirty-two hours after her death, raises concerns about Boulogne-Billancourt’s severe lack of protections for the city’s most vulnerable._ ” Nicolas parroted. “You know, I’d like to see her try our job. It’s not like we knew the whore was in a dumpster.”

The detectives exchanged frustrated looks. Most of the officers in the precinct lacked tact when it came to their narrow-minded views, but Nicolas outshined all of them. The number of citations in his folder rivaled only that of Odd’s; contrary to Odd, his mouthing off usually included a colorful amount of degrading terms for women. 

“Nicolas, settle down.” William chided from his place near the refrigerator. 

Ulrich could never understand how William managed to keep a level head when working with Nicolas. William was respectful, emotionally grounded, and heavily devoted to the force; surely having to mitigate his partner’s dunce-like manners around the clock was a full-time job that interfered with his actual full-time job.

Nicolas donned a petulant smirk, clearly resenting his partner’s scolding. “William, don’t tell me you’re defending the bitch.”

Ulrich sucked in a sudden breath as Nicolas's genuine tone of offense lit a dangerous simmer in his blood. 

He likened the feeling to boiling water on a stovetop; the bubbles would form at the bottom as heat spread across the saucepan, then one by one rise to the top until the water boiled over the sides and sizzled on the heated coils. He had learned from a young age to remove himself from the proverbial stovetop and quell the simmering rage that roared in his chest when he was near his father. On any given day, Nicolas would just be another narcissistic prick with unbridled anger issues, but Ulrich was simultaneously too exhausted and too tightly wound to keep the simmering in check.

“Shut up, Poliakoff.” The rushing of blood in his ears made his voice sound muffled and far away. He could barely see the hesitant looks Odd and William were tossing in his direction. 

Nicolas turned on his heel, slowly and dramatically, to face the detective, plastering an ugly jeer on his face.

“Sorry, what was that Stern?” 

Odd flashed his partner a warning look before turning to Nicolas. “Nothing, Poliakoff, just drink your coffee.” 

“No,” Nicolas folded his arms across his chest and took a few steps towards Ulrich, “I wanna know what Stern said.”

 _‘Keep your head down, he’ll back off if you don’t engage, just don’t look at him.’_ Ulrich’s knuckles were white with exertion as he gripped the counter behind him. 

The break room was pregnant with anticipatory silence as Nicolas stood menacingly over Ulrich’s tense figure. 

_‘Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.’_

“I told you to shut the fuck up, Poliakoff.” Ulrich growled, throwing caution to the wind. 

The simmering in his blood escalated to a rolling boil, threatening to spill over at any moment with each disgusting epithet that dripped from Nicolas's mouth. The angriest part of Ulrich, a part hidden deep inside, was hoping - begging - for Nicolas to cross the line; to give him even the smallest excuse to release the pent up energy that was trapped between his grinding teeth.

Nicolas barked out a laugh and raised his arms incredulously, turning back to the other officers with an amused smirk. “Well, well! He speaks! Tell us, ‘Rich, you got a hard-on for the Jap or something?”

Ulrich’s eyes flicked upwards, fixing the back of Nicolas's head with a deadly-focused glare. His head was devoid of thought, instead filled with a harsh buzzing as he pushed off from the counter and drew himself to his full height. Odd followed suit, sensing the other detective’s tell for confrontation. “Ulrich, don’t.”

“We shouldn’t be surprised, though,” Nicolas continued with renewed vigor, hand mockingly pressed to his chin in feigned pondering, oblivious to the sudden shift in Ulrich’s countenance, “since Stern has appointed himself Boulogne-Billancourt’s very own Patron Saint of the Whores.” 

It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. Nicolas's tirade had flipped the ignition, and Ulrich’s anger had its foot down on the gas. 

In an instant an unstoppable force met an immovable object; a car met a wall; Ulrich’s fist met Nicolas's face. 

For a split second the only sound was that of Ulrich and Nicolas hitting the break room table and then the floor, landing punches and kicks and clawing at each other. Then, all hell broke loose and shouting erupted as Odd and William snapped out of their shock and grabbed their respective partners, pulling them from the fray. Much to Odd’s chagrin, several officers had rushed to the room upon hearing the scuffle, whooping and hollering as Odd pushed a snarling, red-faced, Ulrich towards the door. 

“Sortez, imbécile! You stupid fuck, what’s wrong with you! Don’t come back until you have a level fucking head!”

His chest heaving with anger, Ulrich shoved past the onlooking officers and stalked from the break room; clenching and unclenching his fists, painfully aware that all eyes in the station were on him. He snatched up his badge and wallet from his desk and made his way towards the front of the precinct.

Why had he done that? What the _hell_ had he been thinking?

 _‘You weren’t thinking, that was the fucking problem. You weren’t thinking and you let that bastard get under your skin.’_

The detective slammed open the front doors, growling as he heard Nicolas shout after him: “Defender of the Whores! Fucking psychotic bastard, did you see what he did to me?!”

He stalked down the street, pushing roughly past pedestrians as they followed their morning paths to school or work. Several called after him, disgruntled by his lack of awareness, but he couldn’t hear them over the blood rushing in his ears. 

Nicolas deserved the punch, that much he was certain of. He was admittedly less certain that Captain Delmas would see it that way, and there was no doubt that Lieutenant Morales would pop a blood vessel when he inevitably found out about this; Nicolas and Morales shared the same backwards opinions and the officer was unsurprisingly the man’s favorite.

The sex workers in this city were going to be the death of Ulrich’s career if he continued his emotional investment in their cases.

“Fucking flics...” He muttered under his breath. 

Ulrich wasn’t sure how long he had been walking by the time he paused in front of a quaint café, but it had to have been over an hour since he had finished his second cup of coffee and the adrenaline from the fight at the station was seeping from his body in waves. The inside was small but cozy with comfy-looking chairs and tables claimed by business people and hipsters alike, and his stomach throbbed in hunger as the smell of decent coffee and freshly baked pastries wafted through the room. 

“What can I get you?” The woman at the counter greeted him.

“Erm...black coffee, please. Oh, and a croissant.” He paid and stepped to the side to wait for his purchase. 

“Hey, Detective.” A voice called from behind him. 

Ulrich glanced around until his eyes settled on the owner of the voice, nestled in a corner of the café with a milky coffee and a hefty stack of notes scattered around her laptop. One side of her mouth was quirked upwards in a half smirk. 

Of course he would run into her today.

He grabbed his coffee and croissant and slowly picked his way through the café, motioning towards the seat across from her. “Fancy seeing you again. Is it okay if I sit?”

The woman nodded and moved her coat and purse. 

“So, Detective, what brings you all the way to Clichy?” Yumi asked, her hands tucked under her chin as she leaned forward, feigning a conspiratorial glance around the café, “And what on earth did you do to your face?”

Ulrich self-consciously fingered the side of his jaw. A dull throbbing had started as the adrenaline from earlier faded, and with his luck, a deep blue bruise would bloom there later in the day. He quickly tucked his hand in his lap when he noticed her staring at his busted knuckles.

“Would you believe a precinct brawl?” He chuckled nervously. 

“No, not at all.” Yumi held eye contact as she took a sip of coffee. “You’re really not what I imagine when I think of a cop, Detective Stern.”

Ulrich offered an uncertain smile as her words triggered an unbidden memory from the first time he and Elisabeth had slept together. 

_“You’re way too gentle to be a cop, Stern. You don’t have the temperament.”_

_Ulrich had been tracing circles on the milk-white skin of her back as she faced away from him, but her whispered words gave him pause._

_“Well, what do you imagine a cop to be like then? Maybe I’ll emulate that.”_

_Her silence stretched on for several moments and Ulrich wondered if she’d fallen asleep again until she turned over, her face centimeters from his, expression unreadable._

_“No. Please don’t ever emulate them.”_

He shook himself from the memory. “I get that a lot, actually. You know, you don’t need to call me Detective Stern. Ulrich is fine.”

“Okay, Ulrich, but you still have to call me Mademoiselle Ishiyama.” She teased. 

There was something effortlessly beautiful about the way fire danced in her eyes as she teased him. A spark lived there, as if she was challenging everyone around her, and Ulrich found himself enamored by it. Even at the police station, her feigned callous demeanour had paled in comparison to the heat of indignation when she had felt threatened by the detectives. 

“Why are _you_ here, Mademoiselle Ishiyama? I mean, the coffee’s good, but it’s a bit far from Boulogne-Billancourt.”

Yumi pointed upwards with her left hand. “Kadic News is upstairs. Technically it’s my editor’s apartment, but it also functions as our office. You want to come see it?” 

He was poised to respond when his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a text message from Odd. 

**[Odd 9:03 AM] Where r u? Morales sent Nic home**

Ulrich deleted the notification before shoving his phone back in his pocket. The precinct could wait. 

“You know what? I’d love to.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeremie had never been a sentimental person; after all he was devoted to forensics, a constantly evolving science that required the ability to adapt and change at the drop of a hat. In a fast paced environment there was no time to waste getting caught in the moment when a body might only have minutes of viability. 

That being said, there was something profoundly intimate about the last moments a person experienced above ground. Any body, regardless of circumstance, deserved Jeremie’s laser-like focus as he exposed the secrets of their death invisible to the untrained eye. There was a mutual respect hidden in there that he couldn’t put into words; the corpses told him their stories and he helped them get justice.

His invitation to join Boulogne-Billancourt’s forensics team had been handed down by Dr. Suzanne Hertz, a brilliant but scatter-brained forensic specialist and part-time professor at the local secondary school. The offer was prestigious - not because of the police department, which was notably disappointing, but because Dr. Hertz was a leader of innovation in her field and one of the best forensic analysts in Paris. Why she was squandering that talent at Boulogne-Billancourt, Jeremie didn’t know. 

Before the detectives had joined the precinct, Jeremie had adopted an avoidance policy for the rest of the police station. Between the hours of 8 and 5 he worked solely in the forensics hall, using the morgue door as an entrance and exit in order to keep his engagement with the police officers to a minimum. The decision to work as a forensic technician came with a few hard truths: sometimes your coworkers weren’t the stand-up citizens you wanted them to be - especially for a supposedly efficient, crime-fighting, force. The officers in the precinct were eerily similar to the bullies he’d encountered in primary school; large, dumb, live wires that were just itching for a fight.

It was a matter of time then, Jeremie mused, before someone got tired of Officer Poliakoff’s attitude in a very big way. Fridays were always loud at the Boulogne-Billancourt precinct, but news of the fight between Ulrich and Nicolas was like an electric current; the conflict had whipped the other men into a frenzy of anger and amusement as each one picked a side.

“Odd, hey.”

The detective looked up from his cellphone and exaggerated a double take. 

“Well, well! Einstein emerges from his lair.”

Jeremie smirked and leaned against the detective’s desk, eyes flitting around the bullpen. “Where did Ulrich go?”

Odd tossed the forensic technician a scathing look. “Don’t even mention that prick’s name to me right now. Until further notice he is dead to me.”

“Hah! Like that’ll last.” Jeremie snorted. The pair of detectives were painfully codependent. In the two years that Jeremie had known them, their confrontations never lasted more than a few days at a time, usually ending with a good-natured ribbing on both parts.

Admittedly, Ulrich’s actions this morning were unusual - and concerning. Jeremie knew the detective prided himself on having a level head; it helped keep the scale balanced when Odd’s flair for dramatics or propensity to speak out of turn backed them into a corner they couldn’t get out of. The little stunt Ulrich had pulled would likely land him _and_ Odd desk duty for the next few days.

“I get that he’s tired. Hell, I’m tired. We’re all fucking tired, but him losing his cool on a coworker isn’t going to help solve Maïtena’s case.” 

Odd’s attention was divided between ranting and looking at his cellphone - typing, deleting, and retyping a message to his partner despite the others having gone unanswered. Jeremie mentally noted to have a frank discussion with Ulrich later in the day.

“He just needs to cool down,” The technician offered, “you know how he gets when he’s in a mood. He prefers to lick his wounds in private. Typical, stoic, Ulrich Stern.”

Odd blew air out of his nose in a resigned snort and finally locked his phone, pushing it to the corner of his desk.

“Thanks, Jer.”

A flurry of motion drew the pair’s attention towards the front of the bullpen where Herve had rushed in, out of breath, with two forensic bags slung haphazardly over his shoulder. 

“Jesus, Pichon, where’s the fire?” An officer shouted as the man nearly bowled him over.

The technician skidded to a halt in front of Odd’s desk, handing Jeremie one of the bags. 

“Just...got…a call from...EMS…” He panted, “they’ve got a...dead body for us.”

Jeremie slung the backpack on and motioned for Odd to follow. “You might as well join us, Della Robbia. I’m sure you don’t want to stick around here.”

Odd eyed the other officers in the room, most of whom were still laughing about the morning’s events, before snatching up his badge and service weapon. 

“Should we tell Ulrich?” Jeremie asked, struggling to keep up as the detective strode ahead through the bullpen and out the front doors. 

“Nope!” Odd dangled the keys to the police cruiser over his shoulder and Jeremie and Herve could only imagine the self-satisfied smirk that was painted on his face, “Like you said, he needs to cool down. No dead body privileges for those who can’t play well with others.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 16th Arrondissement was home to two sides of the River Seine, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Auteuil villas: a gated community geared towards the disgustingly wealthy and flaunting 17th century style townhomes, beautiful Seine views, and opulence dripping from every gold encrusted inch. With beefy bodyguards and the best home security money could buy, homicide detectives were rarely needed there; forensic analysts even less so. 

Nevertheless, Odd, Jeremie, and Herve were waiting just outside one of the lavish villas as the paramedics finished moving their equipment back to their ambulance.

“What do you think happened?” Herve asked, probing through his bag for the third time since they had arrived. 

“No idea;” Jeremie responded, “and stop doing that, you’re making me antsy.”

“Detectives!” A voice called from inside the apartment.

The three entered and Odd had to forcibly keep his own jaw from dropping. The idea that anyone could live like this was equal parts fascinating and disturbing to him; every piece of furniture and every decoration looked as though it had been taken out of a period drama, right down to the gold plated fireplace and intricately hand-carved crown molding. It was light and airy and characteristically Parisian; a color palette of white, gold, and peachy-pink reflecting the morning sun off of every surface.

“I’d kill to live here.” Jeremie divulged, putting on a pair of gloves and shoe covers. 

“Detectives, hey.” 

The pair turned around to face the voice and Odd bristled. “Hi, Emily. What do you have for us?”

Jeremie liked Emily. She was charming and gentle and her laugh wasn’t annoyingly sharp the way Elisabeth’s was. Out of all the women he had to work with in Boulogne-Billancourt, he supposed she was the least taxing on his patience.

Odd, on the other hand, wasn’t fond of her. 

Ulrich had dated Emily seriously for several months. They were a good match in most people’s opinion; dedicated to their respective jobs, their loved ones, and each other. Then, one day, it was over. Neither one made a big deal out of it, adamantly remaining friends and chattering on as usual, but the sudden split had piqued Jeremie’s interest and, much to Odd’s displeasure, he put his nose to the trail like any good forensic analyst would. 

Two weeks of pressing Odd for information was all it took for the detective to drag the forensic technician into the bathroom, frustration and guilt etched onto his face.

Emily LeDuc was Boulogne-Billancourt’s only female paramedic, a title she carried proudly - and for good reason; but it meant that every conversation she had with Odd revolved around EMS work: “what was the worst call he’d ever been on?”, “had he ever been called to a domestic disturbance?”, “had he ever seen a suicide?”, “or a burn victim?”, “or a heroin overdose?”

In Odd’s words, Emily’s presence was like reliving his most traumatic days as a paramedic all over again.

_“So, you’re the reason they split?” Jeremie had asked, confused._

_“Don’t say it like that, okay? I didn’t tell Ulrich to dump her. That was his decision.”_

That was true. Or, at least, it was what Odd told himself to be true. In the end, Ulrich had ended the relationship to preserve Odd’s sanity, and Jeremie had made it very clear - on several occasions - how stupid he thought that decision was.

“We received a call about an unconscious person.” Emily started, ushering them through the apartment, “The maid came in to clean about an hour ago, she thought there was a chance the guy was still alive. When I went to check his pulse, his head fell sideways off of his neck.”

As they entered the living room, Odd gaped. 

_‘So much for the airy facade of the Auteuil villas.’_

A squat man, balding on top with wispy blue-white hair around his ears and forehead, was propped up in a seated position on the sofa. His face had been brutalized and strangulation marks were visible around his neck. Just as Emily had described, he had been decapitated, his head barely lining back up on his body in a futile attempt to preserve the crime scene. Blood pooled on and around the figure, seeping into the cloth exterior of the seat under him, dripping onto the floor, and coating nearly every inch of his white collared shirt and black slacks. On the wall behind the sofa, written in the man’s blood, were the words: “THIS FILTHY PIGGY BIT OFF MORE THAN HE COULD CHEW”.

“His hands are missing, the rest of the body is intact.” Emily finished.

“Two decapitations in one week, merde. Who is this guy?” Odd asked.

“Gustave Chardin. He’s some wealthy banker; a CEO or something. Apparently he was out on bail for racketeering, I think.”

Jeremie and Herve began setting up the evidence collection, laying plastic sheeting on the floor and placing evidence markers around the larger areas of blood and body. 

“Thanks, Emily. Jer, I’m gonna search the rest of the apartment.” A curt nod from the paramedic and a wave of dismissal from the forensic technician sent Odd on his way, further into the villa.

There were no obvious signs of forced entry; the balcony door and windows were still locked, and the front door was in pristine condition. The victim either knew the attacker and let him in willingly or left the door unlocked and became the victim in a crime of opportunity. 

The kitchen was just as opulent as the rest of the apartment, and Odd caught himself gaping at the stainless steel appliances. If this were a robbery gone wrong (gone very wrong, as wrong as it could possibly go), the villas were the perfect place. Every pot and pan, plate, and utensil were likely worth more than Odd’s life, and he knew the “homegrown, organic” brand food in the pantry and refrigerator were more expensive than his own basic grocery trips. A cursory glance for possible weapons revealed a set of mostly dull kitchen knives and a surprisingly sharp cheese grater.

 _‘Couldn’t have decapitated him with any of this shit.’_ Odd mused, but put the knives in separate evidence bags anyways.

From the kitchen he ventured into the study. The room was vastly different from the rest of the apartment, with wood flooring stained a deep red and a large desk of the same color pushed near the center. Bookshelves lined one of the walls from floor to ceiling, displaying a handful of french literature amongst books on banking and accounting, and a large bay window let in the morning light, diffused through gauzy, crème, curtains.

Gustave’s desk was messier than the rest of the study, with more books buried under loose papers, cough drop wrappers, and fountain pens; but a black, leather-bound journal quickly caught Odd’s eye. He rifled through the first few pages, containing nothing more than contact information and budget outlines, before stopping a quarter of the way through. 

Gustave’s calendar section was surprisingly full, packed with hastily jotted names, meeting times, and places for what Odd had to assume were clients or other CEO’s; that was, until he took a closer look at said names, times, and places. 

_**Lundi 15 juin, 22:45...Club Lyoko…ask for Princess.**_ Odd pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen; the date from the calendar was four days prior. What the hell was Club Lyoko?

_**Jeudi 18 juin, 22:00...meet w/ Delmas, intercepted angel dust shipment, wants funds€.** _

Odd snapped the journal shut, his heart racing. Angel dust...angel dust... _angel dust?_ It couldn’t be.

Almost two months ago, he and Ulrich had intercepted a shipment of cocaine, arresting three drug smugglers and closing the case - the very case that cemented their promotions. Had the banker been the elusive buyer? Was he trying to broker a deal with Delmas to get it back? Was Delmas actually going to _agree_ to that?

“Odd! You need to come see this!” Jeremie’s voice called from the other room, startling him. 

After a beat of hesitation, the detective shoved the journal into his jacket pocket and made his way back towards the living room. 

“Where’s the fire?” He asked, plastering a smile on his face. It quickly fell when he saw Jeremie’s knitted brow and Herve’s nauseated expression. “What happened?”

Jeremie pushed the banker’s bangs aside, revealing a forehead caked in blood. He could just make out some sort of...something under it, but it was too faint to discern.

“Am I supposed to be seeing something?” Odd demanded, frustration evident. 

The forensic technician grabbed a cotton pad and wiped more blood from the man’s face, then stepped to the side again. 

The surface area of the forehead was smaller than the space between Maïtena’s breasts, but that hadn’t hindered the craftsmanship; a circle encompassed by two concentric rings, four lines extending from the outermost one, had been carved into Gustave’s skin. 

“It’s the same symbol.” Herve proffered, eyes flitting between the detective and the corpse, “The one we found on Maïtena.”

Odd’s stomach churned painfully and he found himself wishing Ulrich was there to see it, too. The decapitation, the missing limbs, the sheer volume of blood, the symbol that they thought was unique to Maïtena Lecuyer’s chest, and now the writing on the wall. Whoever was doing this was escalating; it wasn’t enough anymore to leave the body in a dumpster after torturing it, now they had to stage a horror film using Boulogne-Billancourt as the setting, and its citizens as props. 

“Odd, are you okay? You’ve gone pale.” Jeremie’s voice sounded muffled and far away.

The detective swallowed back the rising bile in his throat. _‘Don’t throw up, don’t throw up...breathe, come on dammit, breathe!’_

“Detective Della Robbia,” Emily spoke up beside him, a gentle hand on his shoulder, “step outside with me, you look like you could use some air.”

Emily’s hands were soft but firm as she pulled Odd away from the bloody scene and out into the hallway. Odd focused on the way her ponytail swung back and forth as she walked, keeping himself firmly fixed in the moment rather than his own head. He barely noticed that the woman had guided him against the wall and moved him into a sitting position until something cold and wet in his hands startled him. 

“Here, drink this.” He glanced down at the bottle of Lucozade, then attempted a grateful grimace in Emily’s direction before twisting open the cap and stealing a few sips. 

When she was satisfied that the color had returned to his cheeks, she sat down next to him.

Odd’s head was reeling. Two bodies mutilated in disturbingly similar ways, marked with the exact same symbol, all in the same week. The cryptic writing on the wall. Gustave’s journal containing possible evidence of...police corruption? Whatever he had expected his first detective case to be, this wasn’t it. 

“Sorry, I’m not usually like this,” He muttered to Emily, “guess I didn’t eat enough this morning.”

For a moment he thought Emily was going to call his bluff, maybe even start one of her annoying paramedic anecdotes that Odd was certain he’d received just as many times as he’d given; much to his surprise, her mouth snapped shut and she nodded in agreement.

“Maybe you should take the day off, Della Robbia.” She rose to her feet, “If you need a medical excuse for Morales, you know where to find me.”

The paramedic turned and walked back into the apartment, leaving Odd alone. He ran his hands through his hair, tugging on the blond strands in frustration. 

_‘Really, Odd? Twenty-six years old, former paramedic, worked at least one homicide, and this is what’s getting to you?’_

Maybe she was right. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 _RUMBLE RUMBLERUMBLEBARROOOOMMM!_

A streak of lightning seared across the sky outside of Yumi’s window, illuminating her figure as she rested on the edge of the sill. The storm had ridden in on dark clouds two hours ago, bringing heavy sheets of rain and a raucous cacophony of noise that startled the woman from a fitful snooze. When it became clear she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep any time soon, she crawled out from the cocoon of her sheets and made her way to the window with a cup of hot tea and a threadbare sweater, a pack of cigarettes in hand. Smoke curled up and around her as she chainsmoked, turning her room hazy with the milky grey fog of tobacco. 

Yumi wasn’t sure what was wrong, but something felt...off. Her day had gone well; the article had been published with minimal backlash (and fewer anonymous death threats than usual), her conversation with Hiroki had gone better than expected, and she’d even relented to having dinner and (most) of a bottle of wine with Tamiya while they made fun of mind-numbing, late-night, television. Maybe it was the wine that was keeping her up; she’d never really been a heavy drinker. 

_‘Or maybe you’re still thinking about your little coffee date this morning,’_ An unbidden voice offered. Her forehead thunked against the window sill in frustration.

The impromptu tour of Kadic’s office lasted ten minutes before Ulrich had taken Tamiya’s looks of displeasure to heart, excusing himself under the guise of getting back to work. As soon as the door had clicked shut behind the detective, Tamiya had descended upon Yumi like a wake of vultures. 

_“What the hell were you thinking, inviting a flic up here! Do I have to remind you that you were in their interrogation room yesterday, Yumi? And that this is my apartment?!”_

_The Japanese woman sat down heavily at her desk, waiting for Tamiya’s tirade to wear itself out._

_“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Tamiya accused._

_“Tamiya, this is just an angle I’m working, okay? If I get an in with him I can get some more information on Maïtena’s case.”_

_Both women knew the excuse was flimsy, but Tamiya resignedly let it go, refusing to call Yumi’s bluff, and the pair worked in silence for the rest of the day._

It was half-true, or at least that’s what Yumi told herself. The reporter needed more information on Maïtena’s brutal murder, and there was no better person to ask than the detective who had found her body; but she had to admit there was something strangely alluring about this Ulrich Stern. 

_“You’re really not what I imagine when I think of a cop.”_

In fact, he was the opposite: shy, soft-spoken, genuine, a heart of gold under an aloof facade. That’s why seeing his bruised jaw and split knuckles had piqued her interest, and suddenly she wanted to know everything she could about the enigma that was Detective Stern and his irascible partner, Detective Della Robbia. 

_BANG BANG BANG!_

Yumi’s neck popped painfully with the speed at which she turned her head towards the hallway outside of her bedroom. The sound of the storm was loud, but she could have sworn she heard someone knocking at her front door. She held her breath, waiting.

 _BANGBANGBANG!_

There it was again. A glance at her alarm clock told her it was past midnight. Who the hell was knocking at this hour?

_BANG BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!!_

Yumi jumped up, stubbing her cigarette out on her ashtray and stepping into the hall. “Okay, hang on! Merde...who is it!?” There was no response.

She pulled her bathrobe off of the kitchen chair and wrapped it tightly around her before leaning on her tip-toes to look through the peephole. Finding no one, she moved her hand to unlock the deadbolt, but hesitated. In all the years she had lived in this apartment with her family, she and Hiroki were the only children she had ever seen. The complex was filled with retirees and employed thirty-year-olds who adhered strictly to the rules on noise levels and late night disturbances; the likeliness of this being a gaggle of teenagers playing ding-dong-ditch was low, and with the lateness of the hour, post or food delivery even lower. 

Yumi hesitated a beat more before unlocking the deadbolt and pulling the door open, craning her neck to peer out. The hallway was deserted, sans her neighbor’s cat rubbing along the wall as it strutted towards the stairwell, and the only noise came from the pelting of rain in the courtyard outside. With a frazzled sigh the woman went to close the door, but something in the corner of her eye brought her gaze downwards. A brown package, the size of a shoebox, had been placed on her doormat. It was taped meticulously closed with her name written in big block-lettering on top. 

Her body was frozen in hesitation as unsettling images of news stories she’d seen about reporters receiving unfriendly care packages with red and blue wires or deadly powders came to the forefront of her mind. 

_‘Don’t flatter yourself,’_ She mused in self-deprecation, _‘Kadic News isn’t so popular that you’d be the target of a domestic terrorism incident.’_

Giving the hallway one last glance, Yumi grabbed the package before retreating inside and deadbolting her door. 

It took another half of a cigarette before the Japanese woman found a pair of scissors and a trash bag to put the discarded wrappings in.

_‘Come on, you coward. Hurry up and get it over with.’_

Tape and wrapping came off in chunks as Yumi snipped through the outer layers of the packaging, finally getting down to the box itself. She pulled off the lid. 

A neatly folded letter atop a newspaper clipping were the first things to greet her, her name scrawled, again, on the outside of the note - this time in cursive.

_**A humble thank-you for the inspiration, Mademoiselle. And an idea for your next article...-XANA** _

Yumi wracked her brains, trying to think of anything - or anyone - she knew that used that name...or perhaps it was an acronym?

Her search drew a blank and she placed the letter next to the box in exchange for the newspaper clipping. It was heavily crumpled and starting to fade in certain places, but Yumi recognized the typeface, regardless. Her eyes scanned the clipping, pausing at the article title in bold, capital, letters:

_**“CRIME DOESN’T PAY: GUSTAVE CHARDIN ARRESTED FOR BANKING SCHEME!”**_

She’d been so proud of that headline, the words coming to her just as she lined up her camera and pressed the trigger to get the perfect shot: the moment police dragged an indignant Chardin out of the building in handcuffs. The banker was a scumbag, and the world deserved to know that he’d been skimming the top layer off of every account to line his own greedy pockets - she’d cherished describing every disgusting detail in that article.

A satisfying red circle had been drawn around the man’s head, completed by a purposeful X across his face. It wasn’t until she saw the photo that she remembered one glaringly uncomfortable detail from her dinner with Tamiya:

_“Shit, Yumes, look at this.”_

_Yumi tore her gaze away from the television and glanced over at Tamiya’s laptop, a news website open in the main tab._

_“What is it?” She asked, her wine-addled brain refusing to comprehend what she was reading._

_“The banker you wrote about, they found him dead this morning.”_

Dead this morning. At the time, she’d thought it was a karmic doing; a divine intervention from the universe, handing down a just balance of the status quo. The box in front of her cracked the foundation of that certainty.

Yumi’s hands shook as she set the newspaper clipping down. Brown paper had been crumpled up as a dividing layer between the note, clipping, and whatever was at the bottom of the box, as though whoever sent the package wanted to delay the reveal for as long as possible. She could feel her breathing hitch and pick up speed as she pulled the paper away with agonizing slowness. 

Her hands brushed something warm and plastic, with condensation pooling around it, and she paused, peering past the paper. 

“What...” Hands moving on autopilot, she removed the last few pieces of brown crumples from the box. 

The woman pulled on the plastic and a freezer bag emerged, watery red liquid surrounding two pale, bloated-

“Ohmygod!” The bag smacked the surface of the table with a sickening squelch, the contents sloshing around. Yumi stumbled backwards, one bare foot catching the other and tripping her in her haste to put distance between herself and that _thing_ on the table. Her lower back hit the laminate flooring and she scrambled like a crab on all fours across the floor until her shoulders hit the edge of the sofa. 

She pressed herself as far back against the fabric as she could and willed her panicked huffs to calm down. This had to be a prank. This couldn’t be real. This kind of thing only happened in films, or television programmes, to those who double-crossed some macho, gun-toting, mafia boss with a flair for dramatics and a freezer big enough to store dead bodies. Surely a no-name journalist in Boulogne-Billancourt wasn’t on the hit list of some psycho...right?

Minutes felt like hours as she mustered up the courage to take a second look, and every agonizing step back towards the kitchen table felt like walking a mile; her feet were stuck in the sludge of fear, requiring more and more effort out of each movement. The bag was right there, just one more step, you could see what it was from here if you just looked...

 _‘Look. Look. LOOK AT IT.’_

A pair of severed hands was reaching out to her; angelic in paleness, dripping in blood, and restrained only by the freezer bag they had been delivered in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta readers are the literal best! Big thank you to EpsilonTarantula (author of the amazing Garage Kids fic) on FF.net/AO3, @/caleblegend_ on twitter and YouTube, and CJ for their help in making this fic happen! 
> 
> If you're interested in seeing how our detectives look and a neat little art thing I made for the fic, please head on over to codelyokoreloaded on tumblr or alientransdan on twitter.


	6. The Three Little Piggies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Descriptions of brutal violence and bodily trauma (including blood) and graphic descriptions of a murder  
> 2\. Non-graphic mentions of sex work  
> 3\. Negative views of police officers  
> 4\. Sexist dialogue  
> 5\. Implications of stalking

_‘This is a nightmare, this is just a horrible nightmare, you’re not awake you’re just dreaming, this isn’t real!’_

Yumi squeezed her eyes shut, as tightly as she could, before looking down. No matter how many times she willed it to go away, it was still there; the brown shoebox in her lap was warming her legs as the rush of air from the subway chilled her core.

_**A humble thank-you for the inspiration…** _

A panicked giggle fell from her lips, unbidden, at the memory of the daintily scrawled missive.

The jarring realization spurred by the contents of the package had flipped the autopilot switch in Yumi’s brain, her hands reaching automatically for her raincoat and a pair of trainers; tucking the offending box under her arm as icy sheets of rain stung and soaked her body. Squirming in the painfully hard bucket seats of the train, her wet skin sticking to the plastic, she wasn’t even sure that she’d locked her front door in her eagerness to get out; to get anywhere but that vulnerable position, alone in her apartment.

She was relieved that the only person to see her in her bed shorts and threadbare jumper was the homeless man sitting on the opposite side of the carriage, preoccupied by his own drunken stupor.

The train ground to a halt and Yumi jumped up, scurrying through the doors and out onto the platform. By the time she breached the surface of the street the rain had eased considerably, and a dull drizzle kept her coat and face dewy and damp. 

Boulogne-Billancourt’s precinct stood like a beacon in the night, its fluorescent lighting smeared hazily through the mist and drizzle of the outside, and Yumi wasn’t sure she’d ever been so happy to see a police station. The woman took a steadying breath before taking the steps two at a time and peering through the front doors. From where she was standing, Yumi could see three figures milling about in the bullpen just past the front desk.

_BANG BANG BANG!_

The sound of her own fist against the glass jarred her as it emulated the stranger’s knocks from an hour prior.

 _BANGBANGBANGBANG!_ The figures still hadn’t moved.

_‘Come on. Look over here, look at me!’_

_BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!_

Yumi swore as she felt the knuckles on her left hand split, but relief flooded her when she saw one of the figures glance towards the window and draw nearer. 

The lock clicked and the door inched open. 

“Can I help y-...Mademoiselle Ishiyama?” Ulrich’s eyebrows were knitted in confusion as his eyes ran the length of her body, visibly confused by her rain-drenched, pajama-clad form. 

“Ulrich, thank god you’re here. I...I need help.”

“You’re soaking wet! Did you walk here?” If the situation weren’t so dire, Yumi would have laughed at the way he balked in surprise. 

A distant rumble of thunder startled the pair, and Yumi motioned impatiently towards the door with her free hand. “I took the métro. Please, can I come in? It’s an emergency.”

The detective stepped to the side and allowed her in, locking the door behind them. The station was dark save for a few lights in the bullpen, and Yumi could see Detective Della Robbia sitting at a desk, speaking in hushed tones to another blond man clad in a lab coat and thick glasses. As Ulrich led her into the bullpen the men abruptly stopped speaking and shifted their attention towards the newcomer. 

“Mademoiselle Ishiyama? What’s going on?” Odd asked, eyes flitting between the rain-drenched woman and his equally confused partner. “Why are you all wet?”

Yumi pulled the box out from under her arm and, with shaky hands, set it on the emptier of the pair’s desk. There was a brief moment where words failed her and she glanced helplessly at the three men in front of her. Maybe going to the police hadn’t been the best course of action, she mused.

_‘It's okay. You can trust Ulrich. Tell him.’_

“I think,” She cleared her throat, “No, I know that someone left this for me on my doorstep tonight.”

The detectives exchanged glances with the man in the lab coat before looking back at Yumi. 

“You, um, you should probably put on gloves when you open it.” Her voice cracked at the end of her sentence as flashes of the box’s contents brought panicked tears to her eyes. 

In the corner of her vision she could see Ulrich’s hands twitch, as though itching to reach out and comfort her, before clenching shut at his sides. 

The man in the lab coat brushed past, leaving the room for a moment before coming back with a small black bag, a box of medical gloves, and a thick sheet. 

“Take off your raincoat. You’ll catch your death in here.” He held the sheet out to her.

The woman peeled her raincoat off and draped it over a nearby chair before wrapping herself tightly in the sheet. It wasn’t warm, but it was a shielding layer against the cold of the station, and she attempted a grateful smile at the man. 

“Jeremie, should we…” Odd hesitated, glancing at Yumi, “I mean, what’s the procedure on this?” 

The look Jeremie shot Odd’s way suggested that now wasn’t the time to discuss it. 

Once all three men had gloves on and Ulrich’s desk had been wrapped in a protective layer of plastic, Jeremie lifted the lid off of the box and set it down, gently, on the desk. 

Odd gasped in horror, stepping back from the surface. “No fucking way! Hands!? Merde. Jesus, _hands_.” 

Jeremie gently pulled the freezer bag from the box, setting it down inside the lid, before reaching in and grabbing the newspaper clipping and note. “Risky move taking this on the métro, Mademoiselle.”

She supposed it was better to explain how she came to possess the pair of severed hands before the detectives developed their own conclusions. “Someone knocked on my door an hour ago, waking me up. When I opened it, this box was on my doorstep. It was addressed to me. The article is mine, too; I wrote it a couple of weeks ago.”

The forensic technician held the note out to Ulrich, who accepted it, eyes flitting between the evidence and Yumi’s face. There was something strangely comforting in the way his eyes seemed to latch onto her every few seconds, as though making sure she was still there, still real, still safe.

“There’s an address here,” He said, flipping the note over, “like a web address. Hang on.” 

Yumi watched as Ulrich discarded his gloves and booted up his computer; in her panic she hadn’t thought to flip the note over. Some investigator she was. 

A few keystrokes later, Ulrich sighed. “Nothing’s coming up. It says that the address can’t be found.”

Jeremie and Yumi both leaned forwards for a better look. 

“That’s because it has ‘dot onion’ at the end. It’s a dark web address.” Yumi offered. She chuckled softly at the confused looks Odd and Ulrich shared and the impressed look Jeremie begrudgingly shot her way. 

“Mademoiselle Ishiyama is right. You need a TOR browser to access that.” When Ulrich cocked an eyebrow in frustration, Jeremie continued:

“Think of the internet as an iceberg. If the tip,” He pointedly ignored Odd’s snort, “is the part of the internet you access every day, the ice under the surface makes up the deep and dark parts of the web. The deep web is anything you need permission to access; private social media accounts, medical records, et cetera. The dark web can only be accessed on the TOR browser, and that’s where things like the Silk Road or communications between people in authoritarian countries happen.”

Jeremie inched closer and closer to the computer as he spoke, finally maneuvering himself in front of Ulrich’s form to gain access to the console. For a moment, the only sound was that of Jeremie typing and clicking while Ulrich and Odd whispered in hushed tones over the evidence. Yumi watched them. If she was honest, she had expected much more of an investigation into her part of this new development; perhaps even some yelling as she sat, exhausted and angry, in a stuffy interrogation room while the detectives threw accusations at her from across the table. The three men had a collectively calm demeanor that settled around them like a weighted blanket, and in their presence her panic ebbed and her frayed nerves tied themselves back together. They really weren’t what she expected from a bunch of flics. 

“Here, I’ve got it.” Jeremie announced. 

The group stood around Ulrich’s computer as Jeremie pulled up the address. The website consisted of a plain black background with a single video screen; there were no words or markings to indicate who or what the site belonged to.

Jeremie hit play and the video started, the camera rustling and adjusting until the subject came into focus. In the center of an ornate sofa was a stout, balding man, covered in blood. His face had been brutally beaten, and the parts that weren’t swollen or mangled were twisted in agony as he sobbed loudly; bloody spittle dripping from his mouth with each garbled, unintelligible plea. Once the camera stabilized, a masked figure emerged from the left side, making its way to the front of the sofa.

 _“You’ve been a very bad man, haven’t you, Monsieur Chardin?”_ A snarling, metallic, computer-altered voice came from the figure. _“You’ve been a greedy little pig.”_

Yumi swallowed heavily as the pieces fell together in her mind; she hadn’t recognized the man through his battered visage.

 _“You’re lucky, then, Monsieur Chardin, that I’ve been appointed to take care of this city’s filth. I get rid of it. I cleanse Boulogne-Billancourt, and Paris, of it.”_

Chardin’s sobs increased as the figure grabbed a long, thick blade from somewhere off camera, then pulled the man’s tense body towards him. Gloved hands moved delicately across the banker’s face, then chin, then down his left arm, until-

 _“AAAHHH!!!”_

Yumi and Odd cursed at the same time.

 _“Now, now, Monsieur Chardin; this is so you’ll never be able to get your grubby little hands on other people’s property ever again!”_

Another slow caress to Chardin’s right side, followed by a second, sickening _schlick_ of the blade caused the man’s voice to hitch in a panicked shriek. Just out of focus, two severed hands fell from the sofa and onto the floor, a puddle of sticky red liquid blooming around the stumps.

The figure grabbed Chardin’s head, twisting it until it faced the camera, and Yumi’s stomach churned painfully as she watched the man writhe and struggle in his seat, his pleas and shrieks getting louder and louder. It reminded her of the horrifying videos she’d seen of pigs futilely attempting to avoid the apron-clad, knife-wielding, butcher; there was no escape, but neither the pigs nor Chardin seemed to know it. 

The figure leaned down and pressed what Yumi assumed was a kiss to the top of Chardin’s head before taking a half step back. 

_“Goodbye, Monsieur Chardin.”_

With one swift swipe, the blade struck Chardin’s neck, eliciting a squelch followed by a ripping noise as the head tore from the body. Yumi cried out in shock, barely aware of firm hands guiding her into a desk chair behind her. 

“Mademoiselle Ishiyama, breathe. Breathe. YUMI, breathe!” 

Ulrich’s face was centimeters from hers, hands barely hovering over each side of her face as though hesitant to send her spiraling further. The woman took a labored breath, then another. Eventually, her breathing evened back out, and she became painfully aware of how wet her face was; this time, from her own tears. The detective scooted backwards, but stayed crouched near her with one hand placed gently on her bicep. 

“The video’s not over…” Jeremie muttered, his face tinged green with nausea. 

The image had shifted and Chardin’s bloody body and villa gave way to a crowded Paris street, lined with a handful of shops, focusing on a corner store supermarket in particular. The camera began moving down the street, approaching the walkway. This continued for a few minutes, and Yumi was poised to ask what they were supposed to be seeing, until a slim figure in a black pencil skirt and dark blue blouse caught her eye. The woman was balancing a brown bag of groceries in one arm and a black purse in the other. There was something painfully familiar about her gait and posture…

“That’s...that’s me.” She pointed. “That’s me...I was at the store yesterday...I bought groceries...he was following me..?”

The faceless figure behind the camera followed Yumi down several streets until she arrived at the alley to her apartment complex. As she turned in, making her way through the courtyard, the camera stopped moving and zoomed in on her, then the screen went black. There was another moment of silence before an address popped up:

_**302 92100 rue de Point du Jour, Boulogne-Billancourt!** _

Yumi’s shoulders slumped in sudden exhaustion and she felt Ulrich’s hand squeeze her bicep. “And that’s my exact address…”

She was barely aware of the three men working around her, bagging the evidence and discussing how they could trace the video’s owner or take the website down. Everything in Yumi’s body was telling her to run; to go home, deadbolt her door, and crawl under the sheets until this all went away. 

_‘It’s not going to go away. He knows where you live. He’s been to your apartment.’_

This man, whoever he was, had just decapitated a helpless banker on camera - something that she was supposedly the inspiration for - then followed her home and posted her address to the dark web in some thinly veiled threat. Her life had been completely upended in a matter of hours.

“Mademoiselle Ishiyama?” Ulrich was crouched in front of her again, eyes full of concern. “Do you think you can write a witness statement for us?” 

Her legs trembled as she got to her feet and she was quietly grateful for Ulrich’s steadying hand hovering just behind her shoulder blade. 

“Once you write the statement we’ll give you a ride back to your apartment, okay?” Odd’s tone of voice suggested the escort home wasn’t an offer but a certainty, that there was no way they would be letting the reporter out of their sight until she was locked safely in her home; or as safe as she could be while a homicidal psychopath prowled the streets around her, camera and knife in hand able to kill at their own leisure.

“I’m sorry you had to run into me twice in one day.” Yumi teased half-heartedly from the backseat of the police cruiser as they pulled away from the station.

She could see Ulrich’s shoulders shake in a soft chuckle. 

“Oh, so that’s where you were this morning after you broke Nicolas’s nose?” Odd asked, incredulous, “Here I was, a sitting housewife, worrying about you. And you were off with another woman.”

Yumi bit back a grin at the detective’s gibes. Much to her surprise, she found that she liked watching the two men interact. There was something of a familial closeness there; a brotherly bond. The pair was obviously fond of each other, even if they didn’t outright say it, and it reminded her of the relationship she and Hiroki had left behind. The thought made her heart twinge. Maybe if she had gone back to Kyoto after graduating, she could have reforged that relationship with him...

_‘I guess phone calls once or twice a week will have to suffice.’_

“I’ll walk you up.” Ulrich offered, and Yumi realized with a start that they had made it to her apartment complex. 

The detective followed Yumi up the stairs and down the hall, keeping a respectful distance, but remaining close and vigilant.

_‘Like a German Shepherd,’ she thought, ‘or a restless wolf guarding the pack’s door.’_

“So I guess you weren’t lying about the precinct brawl, huh?” Yumi asked as they approached her apartment. 

She liked the way his cheeks tinged pink and his hand flew to his hair to tug on the brown strands in embarrassment. 

“Unfortunately not, no...I think Odd’s pretty pissed at me. I’m pissed at me, honestly.” 

“You should only feel bad if the guy didn’t deserve it.” She teased.

They held eye contact for a moment but the detective’s discomfort was evident. 

“Oh, wait.” Ulrich reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it and searching through the bill fold until he found what he was looking for. “Here.”

He handed her a business card and she glanced over it:

**Detective Ulrich Stern, Boulogne Billancourt**

**Desk Phone: +331 41 31 64 00  
Cell Phone: 01 40 25 08 08**

The numbers were scrawled on the card in messy, inked, handwriting, and the Boulogne-Billancourt precinct’s seal was embossed in the center. 

“I’m sure you give all the ladies your business card, hmm?” Yumi smiled cheekily at the detective.

“Only the ones who stop by with a pair of severed hands.” He hesitated, catching the flare of panic in Yumi’s eyes. “That wasn’t a good joke, I’m sorry. We, um, we’re gonna have an officer stationed outside your apartment for the rest of the night, just in case. You’ll be safe, and if you need anything you can call me.”

Yumi rolled her eyes playfully. 

“Thank you, though, Ulrich. Tonight was...I’m glad you and Odd were there.” 

Ulrich was the first to look away, still embarrassed. Yumi hated his inability to accept the compliments and gratitudes thrown his way; she really wasn’t sure what she would have done if another officer had been there instead of him - or worse, refused to take her seriously.

Or worse, if she hadn’t gone to the police station, at all...

“It’s my job.” He settled on. “Anyways, goodnight Mademoiselle Ishiyama.” 

_“YUMI, breathe!”_

Her first name on his tongue had been so comforting...

“Just Yumi is fine.” She corrected, unlocking her door. 

The detective’s face split into a genuine grin and he raised his hand in a half-wave before turning around and heading back towards the courtyard. 

Yumi watched until he disappeared down the stairs and out of sight, then made her way inside the apartment. 

————————————————————————

It was late in the afternoon, the sun just starting to wane in the western sky, before Odd shuffled from the confines of his bedroom and out into the apartment he shared with Ulrich. A peek through Ulrich’s half-open bedroom door revealed that the other man was still sleeping soundly; Odd couldn’t blame him. The two detectives, and Jeremie, had stayed in the station past breakfast, documenting evidence and pouring over the ominous dark web link that had been left on Yumi Ishiyama’s doorstep. They were no closer to unmasking the figure from the video, but at least now they had somewhere to start.

Odd made his way back to their kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filling it up in the sink. He’d fallen into bed without brushing his teeth, and his mouth was gummed up with the previous day’s coffee and sandwich remnants; he drank greedily from the glass to rid himself of it, leaning over the sink in full-bodied exhaustion.

_Knock knock knock!_

The glass clattered into the sink, narrowly avoiding shattering, as Odd’s heart sank in panic.

_‘Jesus, Della Robbia, get a fucking grip.’_

He pushed away from the sink, willing his heart rate to slow down, before picking his way through the apartment to the front door.

Images of Gustave Chardin’s panicked, bloody, visage swam across his mind’s eye, giving him pause between the living room and kitchen.

They weren’t expecting anyone today, that’s why they’d slept in. 

The detective glanced to his right at his open bedroom door, eyes landing on the dresser drawer where his service pistol rested while off duty. For a split second he wondered if he should grab it, but another knock startled him out of his thoughts. 

_Knock knock KNOCK!_

“Hello? Open up, I know you’re in there!”

He breathed a sigh of relief as he recognized the high-pitched voice. Through the peephole, Elisabeth Delmas was barely containing her annoyed impatience as she waited, arms crossed, for the detectives to answer. He quickly unlatched the lock and opened the door to her, feigning the most casual look he could muster. 

“He punched Poliakoff?” Were the first words out of her mouth as she brushed past the detective and breezed into the kitchen, “Where is he?”

Odd closed the door. “He’s still sleeping, Elisabeth, and if I’d known you would show up today, I’d have stayed in bed, too.”

The detective followed her path into the kitchen and watched in amusement as she began searching the fridge, her body odor causing his face to pinch in disgust. “Merde, Delmas, did you run here? You smell like musty socks.”

She threw him a dirty look before settling on a lucozade and nudging the fridge door closed with her hip. “What is it with men and never having a stocked fridge, ah? I had kickboxing today, connasse.”

Odd could only remember a handful of occasions where he and Elisabeth had gotten along. They didn’t interact on a daily basis, which meant there was no need for congeniality; professional or otherwise. It wasn’t until Elisabeth had taken an interest in Ulrich, and Ulrich in her, that Odd felt the expectation of niceties on his shoulders. Ulrich was his best friend, and if Ulrich liked having Elisabeth around, then (begrudgingly) so did Odd. 

“Be nice.”

The pair turned around as Ulrich shuffled into the kitchen, still wiping the sleep from his eyes while trying to pat down the mess of lopsided hair on his head. 

“You punched Nicolas.” Elisabeth started again, but it wasn’t a question this time. “Daddy was considering _suspending you_ , Ulrich.”

“Yeah, well ‘Daddy’ can shove it. Nicolas deserved that punch and I’ll tell the precinct board just as much if I get a behavioral review.” He sat down heavily at the kitchen table. “I’d do it again, too.”

As tough as he spoke, Odd knew that guilt was eating away at his partner’s insides over the fight. Nicolas may have been an asshole, but Ulrich wasn’t one to instigate a confrontation unless absolutely necessary; and even then never against someone he was supposed to share a level of camaraderie with. The pair had only had one behavioral review, following Odd’s outburst over Lieutenant Morales’ unwarranted and prejudiced description of a suspect. The ensuing desk-duty punishment ensured that the severity of his outburst didn’t happen again.

However, all of their prior experience meant one thing to Odd: Ulrich knew better than to go around picking fights. 

Elisabeth dropped into the seat across from Ulrich, leaving Odd to stand awkwardly against the sink. “Anyways, I came to talk about the case. Dad doesn’t seem to think Maïtena and Gustave are connected.” 

Ulrich and Odd shared a glance over Elisabeth’s head. If Boulogne-Billancourt had a precinct slogan, it would be ‘work harder, not smarter’. The detectives frequently had their work cut out for them trudging uphill to get even the most obvious of cases solved; the bureaucracy was a nightmare. Odd knew the Captain wasn’t stupid, the cases were obviously connected. The man just didn’t want to do the paperwork.

“Not connected? Putain de merde, that’s a load of bullshit, Sissi. Did you show him the symbol?”

“I did, but he argued that the one on Gustave was too messy to adequately identify,” She held up a hand to stop Ulrich from interrupting, “even with Jeremie’s initial report.”

Ulrich ran his hands through his hair and tugged at the roots. “Wait until he finds out the man’s hands were in a box.”

Elisabeth sat stock straight. “Wait, what?”

“Yumi Ishiyama, the reporter who identified Maïtena’s body, came running in at two this morning with a nice little care package. We think it was left by the killer. It had Gustave’s hands and a couple of other things, including a dark web address to a video of his slaying. We wrote it all in the report before we left the station this morning.”

The woman gawked at the new information. “Wait, that reporter just so happened to be at the crime scene to ID Maïtena’s body then brought you Gustave’s hands, and you didn’t book her?”

Odd chuckled. “Ulrich was too busy planning his next date with her. That’s where he went after he clocked Nicolas.”

The detective could feel Elisabeth’s heated glare in Ulrich’s direction; he didn’t feel bad that he had knowingly handed the city prosecutor more ammunition to use against the brunet man. Ulrich spared Odd a withering glance and avoided Elisabeth’s prying questions, choosing to stand up and make himself busy with the coffee percolator instead. 

“There was no first date. I stopped by a cafè and she was there, she invited me to tour-”

“Her breasts?” Elisabeth interrupted.

“-Kadic News, and then I left and went back to the station. You’re so fucking vulgar for a female prosecutor, you know that?”

A brief silence, broken only by the sound of coffee sputtering into the pot, settled over the three as each waded through their own thoughts. 

“I know that name, though.” Elisabeth mused under her breath, “Where do I know that name? Ishiyama. Chinese?”

“Japanese.” The detectives responded concomitantly. 

Ulrich poured himself and Odd cups of coffee then offered one to Elisabeth, who shook her head. 

Odd accepted the cup gratefully. “If Delmas doesn’t want to say they’re connected, then he won’t sign off on us investigating both of the cases and there goes half of our evidence. What can we do to get him to change his mind?”

“I’ll see if I can pressure him into reconsidering and I’ll keep you updated. I’m heading home, I need a shower.” She rose to her feet and smacked Odd upside the head as he nodded in exaggerated agreement, then gave Ulrich a kiss on the cheek before heading towards the front door. “Salut, bisou bisou!”

Odd waited until he heard the door slam shut before turning to face Ulrich. 

He’d almost forgotten about Gustave’s journal in his jacket pocket until the pair arrived home and headed to their separate rooms to change and sleep. The journal had tumbled onto the floor as Odd had tossed the jacket onto his desk chair, causing him to kick his bedroom door closed in a rush of panic. Elisabeth’s arrival and subsequent mention of her father had reminded him that the offending item was taking up residence next to his service pistol, and the thought burned a worse hole in his stomach than the scalding, black, coffee.

A lump formed in his throat, choking back the words he desperately didn’t want to admit, “‘Rich, I need to show you something; and you’re gonna be mad, but you need to see it.” He pushed away from the sink and shuffled to his room to retrieve the journal, ignoring the confused look his partner gave him.

Ulrich eyed him curiously upon his return.

“Yesterday, when we got called to Chardin’s villa, there was something on his desk.” He held out the journal and winced as Ulrich’s eyes widened, “I know, I know, okay? I should’ve put it in evidence-”

“You’re damn right you should have put it in evidence! You were riding my ass all night about the fight with Nicolas, but you stole evidence from the goddamn crime scene? Do you know how much trouble this could get us in?”

The question settled uncomfortably between the detectives as Odd refused to meet Ulrich’s eyes. The blond was expecting more of a fight from his partner, but instead, Ulrich fixed him with a look of pained frustration. 

“Just...look through the calendar section.” Odd muttered, handing the journal over. 

Ulrich shot him one last glare before snatching the journal away and rifling through it. His face quickly shifted from anger at Odd, to confusion, to wide-eyed shock. 

“Angel dust shipment...he doesn’t mean-”

“The case we worked? I think that’s exactly what he means. I think he was planning on talking to Delmas about getting the shipment back.” Odd interrupted.

If there was anyone who needed a break, it was Ulrich, Odd mused. The man carried the weight of the world on his shoulder every day, let alone the days where they had two dead, dismembered, bodies and a dark web murder room. Gustave’s incriminating journal was yet another heavy layer to the drama they were knee deep in, and guilt was creeping up Odd’s spine at having put his partner in a worse position by stealing evidence. 

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Elisabeth. Do you think she knows?”

Ulrich distractedly shook his head, attention divided between his partner and the book in his hands. “Not likely. Delmas doesn’t even like keeping her updated on things pertinent to her job, let alone breaking the law. He wouldn’t want to force her hand for a precinct inquisition. This just leaves two questions.”

The blond detective cocked an eyebrow in confusion and motioned for Ulrich to continue.

“Which takeout place are we ordering from, and what’s Club Lyoko?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re distracted tonight; more so than usual.” 

A dull throbbing had bloomed behind Aelita’s eyes earlier in the day, and the pulsating lights and pounding bass at Club Lyoko had done the opposite of remedy her situation. Laura had made it very clear that Aelita was lucky she had been allowed to serve drinks during her shift rather than dance or work the pole. Quite frankly, Aelita didn’t care to consider herself lucky either way. 

“I don’t know how you’re not. I keep thinking that we won’t even be able to hold a funeral for Maïtena.” 

Milly’s face fell, thoroughly chastened by Aelita’s words. The pair had just walked out onto Boulevard de Clichy as their shift came to a close. The sun had set hours ago and the street was now bathed in the neon, technicolor glow of street lamps and shop signs that were advertising a variety of lewd and lascivious activities for just the right price. Aelita wrapped her jacket closer around her to hide the form fitting costume she wore to work from passersby. She didn’t want to give the illusion that either she or Milly were on the market tonight; the commodification she was starting to feel towards her own body was emotionally draining. 

“We could hold a vigil?” The red-head suggested. “Maybe we can do it at our apartment and have a gathering with food and stuff.” 

Aelita liked Milly. The young woman was spritely and fun to be around, but also ferociously tempered with a fishing-net for a filter between her brain and mouth; the only time she wasn’t talking was when she was asleep or eating, and tonight Aelita found herself looking forward to the moment Milly would lock her bedroom door and go to sleep. 

The one-bedroom apartment was small but cozy, and Aelita didn’t mind sleeping on the pull out in the living room; it was a roof over her head, food in her stomach, and a warm bed to sleep on. In return, Milly could reduce her rent by half and wouldn’t have to live alone in the bad part of the city. 

The pink-haired woman grabbed Milly’s hand, squeezing it tightly in her own silent apology. “I just wish there was more we could do for Nathalie, you know? That poor girl; no dad, just lost her mum...I can’t imagine what she’s going through.” 

The pair waited in a small crowd at the crosswalk, their apartment coming into view just down the road. 

“They didn’t let you see her, huh? I can’t believe you took that reporter woman with you instead of me. I hate reporters, they’re always so pompous.” 

Aelita offered a smirk as the crosswalk sign turned green and the mass moved forwards across the road. “She looks presentable, like she has a normal job and life. It would be easier for her to get in there than either of us.”

One glance in Milly’s direction told Aelita that the young woman had stopped listening; instead her attention was centered on the apartment rising above them. Aelita followed her gaze towards their dimly lit window. “You left the lights on again, didn’t you, Milly?” She accused. 

Milly shook her head, violently. “No I didn’t!”

“Well it had to be you, I always make sure to turn them off. Our energy bill is going to be through the fucking roof.”

They took the stairs two at a time to the seventh floor and turned down the hallway. The apartment building was older, ensuring that the elevator never worked, the water wasn’t reliable to drink from, and the paint - still mixed with lead - was peeling off of the walls. The light bulbs that fit the ceiling fixtures gorged themselves on energy; usually the young women were good about keeping the lights off until it became absolutely necessary, but Milly was known to leave the house in a rush and, on one occasion, with the water still running.

“I swear, Aelita, I turned it off this time, because I had the note to remind me on the door and I-”

“Jesus, Milly, you didn’t close the door either.” Both women stopped a few paces away. 

Their front door was ajar, the dim light from inside shining out into the even dimmer hallway. Aelita held a hand up to quiet Milly before she could speak, then led her into the apartment. 

The entire place had been ransacked. Aelita’s sheets were ripped off of the bed, the table and chairs in the kitchen had been overturned, pots and pans were strewn around the floor, and water was spilling out over the edge of the sink which had been stopped up with the dish towels that usually hung on the oven.

“Merde…” Milly muttered, stepping further into the apartment. 

_Thump...thump…_

Aelita’s head snapped upwards and the two women made startled eye contact. Just between Milly’s bedroom and the kitchen, the muffled tapping of shoes could be heard behind the closed bathroom door. She quickly grabbed Milly and pushed her into the bedroom, motioning desperately for the woman to be quiet. It was clear that someone had broken in to ransack their apartment, but who and for what purpose?

The handle to the bathroom clicked and the hinges squeaked as the intruder pushed the door open. 

_‘Merde, where can we go!? The bed, the bed!’_

She grabbed Milly’s arm and dragged the panicking woman to the floor, pushing her under the bed first then quickly crawling in after. They wriggled backwards until they were out of view and Aelita covered Milly’s whimpering mouth. She tried to ignore Milly’s warm and wet face as tears spilled down her cheeks and onto the pink-haired woman’s hand. 

_Thump...thump...thump…_

A pair of black combat boots stepped into the doorway then made their way across the room, coming to a halt in front of the bed with a squelch and a squeak as they turned to face the wall. Dark red splotches had been left in their wake, trailing across the laminate flooring from the soles and falling in steady drips from somewhere higher on the intruder’s body. The sound of an object clacking against hollow plastic and a thick sloshing noise was followed in quick succession by wet pats against a smooth surface. After a few moments, sticky red liquid slowly dribbled down the crème colored wall and over the baseboard, forming a puddle that pooled around the intruder’s shoes and coated the rubbery material of the soles in crimson as he painted the wall.

_‘Black combat boots...heavy footsteps...probably a man, maybe early thirties? Hands are white, so probably Caucasian…’_

She shimmied forwards, careful not to make any noise, and flinched when Milly grabbed her, eyes wide in incredulity. 

_“No!”_ The red-head mouthed. 

Aelita pointed towards the figure as much as she could, her arms constricted in the small space. _“I need to see his face.”_

Mere seconds stretched on for what felt like hours before Milly hesitantly let go of Aelita’s arm and covered her mouth with her own hand. 

She had never noticed how slick the laminate flooring was, but was nevertheless grateful as she inched her head out from under the bed, soundlessly, to get a better glimpse of the figure above them. 

_‘Fuck...a mask.’_

The balaclava was pulled tightly over his face, obscuring any discernible features sans a padded outline. 

_‘Just turn to the side...let me see your eyes or something…’_

In hindsight, she mused, she should have paid more attention to the rest of the figure and what he was doing. The red liquid in the bucket sloshed around dangerously as the man moved, causing it to spill over the sides in a slippery, crimson, mess. It only took one hand twitch for his fingers to lose their grip, sending the bucket careening down towards the floor and its contents spraying out in all directions. A spattering of crimson hit Aelita in the face, soaking her hair and shoulders, and she bit down on her tongue to keep herself from crying out in shock. At the very last second, just before the heel of a heavy boot crashed down on her head, two scrawny arms snaked themselves around her shoulders and dragged her back into safety. Milly had noticed moments before her that the figure was stumbling away from the bucket and towards Aelita. 

The young women clung to each other, and Aelita was sure that Milly’s vice grip on her bicep would leave little crescent imprints from where her nails were digging in. The figure began to crouch down, slowly revealing a pair of veiny hands, then toned forearms and biceps, followed by defined and broad shoulders...but before the head could appear, he froze. Everything was completely quiet and still; so still that she was sure the figure would hear the pounding of her blood if he listened hard enough. Her brain and body were completely disconnected as she yelled at herself to scoot back, to put as much distance between her, Milly, and the monster in their apartment; instead she lay frozen, prone on the floor at the mercy of whatever was going to happen next. 

_“Do you believe in God, Aelita?” Maïtena had asked one morning as they ambled home after a long night of work._

_The question had caught her off guard and she was unsure how to respond. In truth, her parents had raised her in the Catholic church, taking her to mass once or twice a week. She knew how to kneel at the pew, mimic the sign of the cross, and say amen at all the right moments. That didn’t mean she knew what she believed in, if she believed at all; could she really call herself religious if she hadn’t stepped foot in a church since the day she left home, all those months ago?_

_“It wasn’t supposed to be a stumper, mon ange.” Maïtena’s smile could have lit up a whole building, let alone a whole room, and it immediately put Aelita at ease._

_“I’m not really sure. I don’t think so. I haven’t been to church in so long, and if there is a God, I don’t think he’d like me very much.”_

_The blonde threw her head back with a chesty laugh. “That’s not how God works, Aelita. He doesn’t care that you’re a prostitute. He walked with prostitutes, spent time with them.”_

_Aelita mulled the idea over for a few more steps before responding, “If there is a God, then he sent you to me, I think. Mon maman.”_

Aelita thanked whatever force was watching over them as the figure abruptly stood back up, bucket in hand, and trudged towards the bedroom door. They listened as the sticky squelch from the red liquid on his shoes sounded farther and farther away until the front door slammed closed with a jarring finality. Neither woman dared to move, nor breathe, as they listened intently for any sign that he was still there.

“I’m gonna check…” Aelita muttered to Milly, crawling out from under the bed. She crept back into the hallway, glancing around, but there was no sight of the faceless man who had “redecorated” their apartment.

“Milly, I think he’s gone.” 

A shuffling sound, followed by a thump and then a panicked shriek, sent Aelita running back into the room. Milly was pointing at the wall next to the bed, her hands shaking profusely and welled up tears giving her eyes a glassy appearance. In any other situation, Aelita would have found the woman’s trembling bottom lip to be comical, but the moment was too dire to waste time on a joke. The air in the room had turned a sour copper, and Aelita immediately regretted sucking in a deep breath as she turned to face what Milly was pointing at. On the wall, written in the same nauseating red liquid, were the words: “RUN LITTLE PIGGIES”. 

Behind her, Milly folded at the waist and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EpsilonTarantula has been a literal blessing during all of this, and without them, my writing would sound a bit more clunky. Also thank you to @/caleblegend_ on twitter who lets me backboard ideas off of him and to CJ who puts up with my constant English questions. 
> 
> It's July, so that means it's Code July! The prompt is on the Code Lyoko subreddit if you are interested, and I will be doing a mixture of fanfic works (outside of Bad Moon Rising) and fanart. I'd love to see your works if you choose to participate OR if you have anything you'd love to ask me to write for one of the prompts, let me know! <3
> 
> By the way: Shout out in the comments if you caught some of the references to the OG show that are littered around in this chapter!
> 
> I'm gonna start putting some of the music I listened to for each chapter, maybe. Aelita's part or at least the last couple of paragraphs was aided by the song _Tear You Apart_ by She Wants Revenge


	7. Girls Just Wanna Have (more) Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Mentions of a suicide attempt  
> 2\. Descriptions of bodily trauma (including blood)  
> 3\. Infidelity  
> 4\. Non-graphic mentions of sex work  
> 5\. Recreational drug, tobacco, and alcohol use  
> 6\. Implied nudity  
> 7\. Violence

“I wish you wouldn’t do that. It’s a disgusting habit for a young lady.”

Elisabeth clicked the striker wheel, an arc of flame sparking out of the top. She drew the lighter closer to her mouth and held it to the tip of the cigarette, lighting the end evenly as she inhaled deeply. After a few drags, and the bittersweet abatement of her nicotine-withdrawal induced headache, she acknowledged her father. 

“Don’t patronize me, Dad. Did you forget I used to steal cigarettes from your briefcase in secondary school?”

She felt the man sidle up beside her, joining her in watching the traffic down below. She really didn’t like spending time in the Delmas’ villa; memories were a fickle thing that tended to favor the bad over the good. 

In a house with as much trauma as theirs, the good was hard to come by. 

The estrangement between father and daughter was evident in the way Jean Pierre fidgeted restlessly next to Elisabeth’s stoic, stock-still, form. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment they had fallen out, but she knew it had to do with her going off to university to study law after her father had explicitly begged her not to. No matter how much he pleaded, the facade of ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’ had to be broken at some point. 

“You’re here to talk about the Lecuyer case, aren’t you?” Jean Pierre asked. “You think you have some kind of say in what goes on in my police station?”

Elisabeth smirked around the cigarette and removed it to exhale, calculating her next words carefully. 

As prosecutor, she had plenty of oversight powers when it came to Boulogne-Billancourt’s precinct; she only turned a blind eye to the lesser accusations against the officers because of her father’s position as Captain. It wasn’t as though her favoritism scored her any points; his words reminded her that no matter what she did, or what she achieved, he would always try to pin her under his stubby, little, thumb. 

“I think there’s a woman in the morgue, chopped up and beaten, and that her case is connected to a suspiciously similar murder that your detectives just took on.” The prosecutor turned to the man, aware that their argument about the case was indicative of something much more personal. “Your officers may kiss your ass, Dad, but I don’t have to. I encourage you to sign off on Detectives Stern and Della Robbia investigating both of these cases, or I’ll get a judge to do it, myself.”

Jean Pierre snarled, poised to respond, but was stopped by a weak voice calling to them from inside the villa. 

“Elisabeth!”

Elisabeth glanced towards the balcony doors.

“We’re not done talking about this.” She warned, stubbing her cigarette out on the railing and flicking the butt onto the street below. 

She turned her back on Jean Pierre and headed inside, picking her way past the living room and kitchen towards her parents’ bedroom. The distinct smell of lavender incense and men’s aftershave met her as she stepped through the doorway, spotting the source of the voice. 

“Oui, maman?” 

Marion Delmas was nestled delicately amidst several blankets, quilts, and pillows, propped up against the headboard with her computer on her lap and glasses resting precariously on the tip of her nose. She looked exactly like Elisabeth in almost every way, right down to the raven-black hair and placement of sun spots that were smattered across her skin; the only difference was her gaunt expression and emaciated figure that twinged and ached with every movement. 

“Come sit, mon amour.” Marion patted the bed next to her with fragile hands. 

Elisabeth walked over, clambering onto the bed next to her mother. It was like she was five years old again, climbing into bed with her parents after a nightmare, or watching as Jean Pierre finished police reports or Marion worked on a new case. She had been so naive back then, trusting so blindly in the idea of good and evil or black and white; never a grey area. 

“What are you doing, maman?” She asked, leaning over her mother’s shoulder. 

“Your father didn’t have time to look through the spending for this month, and I was feeling much better today so I decided to do it. What were you two talking about outside, chérie?”

“Elisabeth and I were just discussing work. Right, Elizabeth?” Jean Pierre interjected from the doorway. Both women looked up at his arrival, each wearing a different expression. 

_“Papa, what’s wrong with maman?” Elisabeth hadn’t yet reached ten years old, her baby teeth falling out and adult teeth filling in, still blissfully unaware of boys or makeup or short skirts; her life was in limbo, in between relatives’ houses or waiting room chairs as she watched doctors poke and prod at her mother in futile attempts at a diagnosis._

_Jean Pierre had brushed her off in frustration. “Elisabeth, quiet. Your mother is sleeping. You don’t want to wake her up, do you?”_

Marion turned towards her daughter, her cheeks dimpling as her eyes ran the length of her in motherly admiration. They came to a stop at the gold Star of David necklace around her neck.

“I’m so glad you’re wearing that, ma chérie, you look very nice,” Marion reached out and fingered the necklace before tucking strands of Elisabeth’s hair away from her face, “but you look tired. Are you sleeping enough, Elisabeth?”

_“Maman! Maman!” Her aunt’s arms around her, holding her back, as two men in uniforms moved a half-dead Marion to a gurney while Jean Pierre frantically rattled off answers to their questions._

_There had been so much blood in her parents’ bathtub, Marion’s wrists slit lengthwise in a nearly successful attempt at her own life. Elisabeth had been so young at the time, only able to understand that something was very, very wrong; but unsure what exactly it was. She had screeched and screamed like a banshee until her father came thundering into the room, ready to lecture that she was too loud, too raucous, and not calm enough for a young lady. Later, in the quiet of her aunt’s house, she knew her “loud” mouth had saved her mother’s life._

_It was the last time she ever bothered listening to her father’s words._

“I’m okay, maman. You know I always wear this.”

Marion hummed in assent before turning back to her work. “Will you be staying for dinner, chérie?”

Elisabeth glanced at Jean Pierre before shaking her head. “Je suis désolée, I have plans.”

A flicker of disappointment passed over Marion’s face, disappearing as quickly as it came. “Perhaps another time.” 

The prosecutor pressed a gentle kiss to Marion’s cheek before following Jean Pierre out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. It was safe to say Elisabeth preferred her mother’s gentle countenance to her father’s straight-backed and aggressive one. Seething resentment came off of him in waves that threatened to bowl her over if she wasn’t steadfast. The tension between them was palpable, and she waited patiently for him to speak. 

“One night a week, Elisabeth. One night a week for dinner with your mother, that’s all I expect of you.” He kept his back to her, leaning over the sink. 

At almost twenty-seven years of age, she was tired of being spoken down to by her father. She had her own life, her own apartment, a prestigious job and title that earned her more money than she ever thought she would. She had even put herself through a law degree at the University of Paris, passing with high marks; yet somehow her achievements paled in comparison to the faults Jean Pierre constantly scoured her life for. Elisabeth had given up a long time ago trying to make her father happy, but in the mention of her mother was a place she could not hide. 

She laughed incredulously, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Ah bon, papa? Is that all? Eh bien je suis désolée, Capitaine.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” He roared, whipping around to face her. 

They both eyed the hallway that led towards Jean Pierre’s bedroom, quickly lowering their voices. 

“Don’t talk to me like that again, do you understand? I am your father;” He hissed, “just because you have a fancy title doesn’t mean you can disrespect me in my own home.”

Elisabeth’s breathing came out in angry huffs, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each word. “Maison, papa? Qu’est-ce que tu en sais? Or do I have to remind you what led up to mum’s episode, ah?”

The intensity of her words were like a slap to Jean Pierre’s face, rendering him speechless and flushed. Chastened, he turned back towards the sink, his shoulders slumping in a way that suggested the conversation was over. She almost felt bad for the man’s pained reaction.

_“Papa! Papa! Look at my drawing, papa!” Elisabeth had run into the house after school, her voice screeching as she sought out her father’s study. “Papa! Where are you?”_

_She had thrown open the doors to the study and stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide in confusion at the scene before her. Jean Pierre had jumped to cover the woman under him, quickly zipping up his own fly and stepping away from his desk. The woman certainly didn’t look like her mother._

_“Elisabeth! What the hell did I say about entering my study without my permission!” The sound of his voice had drowned out the gentle patter of Marion’s footsteps as she followed Elisabeth up the stairs._

_“Ma chérie! Don’t bother your fath-” There was a silence, pregnant with tension, as the unknown woman in the study quickly dressed behind Jean Pierre’s hesitant form._

_Marion had pulled Elisabeth away from the study before turning to face her husband._

_“Marion, ah, I can explain...”_

_“No, Jean Pierre. No.”_

Almost.

Jean Pierre gave a resigned sigh. “We’ll see you next week for dinner, Elisabeth. Steak, if you want.”

After a beat of hesitation, the woman nodded and reached for her coat and purse on the kitchen island. 

“Attends.” He stopped her. “I...I will look into the Chardin case. I’ll let you know later this week what I decide. D’accord?”

Elisabeth’s shoulders slumped in relief, a small smile dimpling her cheeks. At least something had gone right today, she mused.

“D’accord.” With a flourish, she turned away from the man and headed down the hall. “By the way, I like my steak well done.”

Jean Pierre’s deep-chested sigh followed her out the front door.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Knock knock knock!_

Yumi stepped back from the entrance, startling as she narrowly avoided stepping on Tamiya’s foot, and waited for an answer. 

Despite the circumstances, she was grateful that Aelita had called her to ask for help in cleaning her apartment. Tamiya had been breathing down her neck since finding out about the killer, XANA’s, care package; and although at first it was nice not to sleep in her apartment alone, Yumi was starting to miss the solitude that came with an empty house. 

The door inched open and a soft face peeked through the crack, bubblegum pink hair just visible above the forehead. 

“Yumi!” Aelita opened the door wider, smiling gratefully at the Japanese woman. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Yumi held up a few bags, motioning to similar ones in Tamiya’s hands. “We brought cleaning supplies and the new door locks you asked for. Oh, and Chinese food, I hope that’s okay?”

“You better have egg drop soup!” A shrill voice called from further inside the apartment. 

Aelita grinned, stepping to the side to allow the two women to enter.

The apartment was tidier than Yumi expected, apart from several trash bags that were lined along the kitchen cabinets. What she assumed was a sofa had been pulled out into a bed, a mess of sheets piled on top waiting to be stretched over the sides of the mattress. In the hall, on her hands and knees and wiping at the floor with paper towels soaked in cleaner, was a slim woman with a mess of fiery red curls tied up in a loose bun on her head. The open windows did nothing to cool the small apartment, and stray hairs were sticking to the woman’s sweaty face and neck, making her already pale, freckled skin even paler.

“This is my roommate, Milly. Well, technically, I’m her roommate.” Aelita explained, taking the bags from Tamiya and leading the two newcomers into the kitchen. Milly stood up and tossed her gloves into a nearby trash bag before joining them. 

“Nice to meet you. This is Tamiya, my editor at Kadic.” Yumi said. 

Tamiya nodded her hello and plopped down into one of the chairs. 

The pink-haired woman rifled through the cleaning supplies while Milly grabbed plates and bowls from the cupboards, making a beeline for the bag of Chinese food. 

“What exactly happened, Aelita?” Yumi asked, gratefully accepting a bowl from Milly. “You didn’t tell me much on the phone, just that someone broke in and messed up your apartment.”

Aelita and Milly shared a furtive glance, neither sure how to explain the previous night. It was evident from the trash bags that most of the disarray had been dealt with before Yumi and Tamiya had arrived, likely in an attempt to get the apartment back to some sense of normalcy.

“It might be better to show you.” Milly spoke up, setting the container she had been serving from on the table.

Yumi and Tamiya followed the two roommates into the back room.

The stench of blood was so overwhelming that it threatened to bowl Yumi over. Even the open window couldn’t help suppress her gag reflex, and she quickly covered her mouth and nose to block the scent. The floor was covered in red, and Yumi’s eyes followed the trail over the baseboards and up the wall, her eyes coming to rest at the meticulously painted words. 

“Run little piggies…?” Tamiya muttered, her stare transfixed in the same place as Yumi’s.

Milly sat down on her bed. “We got home last night and the door was open. Some guy had broken in. We hid under the bed when we realized he was still here, and he painted this on the wall before taking off.”

Yumi noticed that Aelita was facing away from the wall, her eyes glassy and far away as she stared out the open window. It occurred to her that this wasn’t the first time in the past week and a half that Aelita had been targeted; her life and now her home, her safest space, had been violated in the worst possible way. 

“You didn’t go to the police?” Tamiya asked, motioning to the trash bag and cleaning supplies Milly had neglected in the hallway. 

The red-head snorted, fixing Tamiya with an amused smirk. “Do you really think a couple of prostitutes are going to go to the cops for a problem? No, we’ll handle it ourselves.”

“With our luck,” Aelita added, finally turning back to the three women, “they would have arrested us on suspicion of murder.”

 _‘Ulrich would’ve taken it seriously.’_ Yumi thought. _‘Or at least, I think he would’ve…’_

After a filling lunch (as far away from the blood drenched room as Yumi could possibly get), the women put on gloves and got down to business cleaning the apartment.

Most of the blood in the hallway had been cleaned before Yumi and Tamiya’s arrival, leaving the blood in Milly’s bedroom and the water stains in the kitchen.

Yumi made her way back down the hallway, heading towards the kitchen, before a glasslike crunch sounded under the sole of her tennis shoe. She swore and glanced down, confirming her suspicions, then got onto her hands and knees to take a closer look. 

Just under Aelita’s bed were two picture frames. They had likely been shattered when the bed had been jostled during the break-in, skittering under it and out of sight leaving a trail of broken glass. She reached in, grabbed them, and pulled them into her lap. 

The first picture was instantly recognizable - Maïtena’s beautiful, unscathed, visage stared back at her. The picture had clearly been taken in Milly and Aelita’s kitchen, and Yumi could just make out a freckled shoulder and shock of red hair in the corner of the image. What surprised Yumi most was the young girl in Maïtena’s arms and just how much she looked like the woman, with blonde hair, ocean blue eyes, and an endearing smile.

Yumi set down that frame and looked at the second one, her heart warming at the sight of a middle-aged couple smiling up at her. The man had his arms around the woman, holding her tightly and pressing a kiss to her cheek, and the woman’s mouth was open in mid-laugh. She looked painfully familiar…

“That’s mum and dad.” A voice came from behind Yumi and she startled, nearly dropping both of the frames. 

“Merde, Aelita! You scared me.”

The pink-haired woman crouched down next to Yumi, smiling thoughtfully at the photographs.

“Waldo and Anthea, that’s their names. I haven’t spoken to them in over a year. I’m not sure they’d want to speak to me, anyways.” Her voice was soft with melancholy. “I guess that’s my punishment for running away from home.”

Yumi’s stomach sank as Aelita gently took the frame from her, running gloved fingers over the broken glass. To both women’s relief, the photograph had remained intact.

“Maïtena looks so happy here.” The Japanese woman muttered, changing the subject.

Aelita nodded. “Nathalie was her life, everything she did was to make things better for her daughter. Maïtena was like...everyone’s mother, in a way. She took care of all us; made sure we had rides home from Club Lyoko, made sure we had our location services turned on when we went out onto the streets, and made sure we all somehow managed to pay our rents on time. As much as people like to criticize the sex work community, we really are a tight knit family...I, uh, I miss her a lot.”

The reporter, through her interviews with Maïtena, had garnered a similar opinion. Although Yumi was an outsider, the sex worker had treated her with the utmost respect; going so far as to check in with Yumi when the reporter took her brief mental-health sabbatical from the newspaper. It was surprising that someone who had been through as much as Maïtena had could still be so vibrant, bubbly, and altruistic. 

“Aelita, I rolled a spliff; do you want to light it?” Milly stepped out from the kitchen, lighter and marijuana cigarette in her hand. The pink-haired woman reached out without looking, accepting the drugs. She lit the end and inhaled deeply before holding it out to Yumi, who quickly declined. 

“Milly, where’s Tamiya?” Yumi asked, getting to her feet. 

“Bedroom! Almost done getting the blood off the wall.” Tamiya’s voice floated out to them, and Yumi followed it. 

A large red stain on the wall and baseboard was all that was left of the night prior, and the women had decided over lunch that it would probably be best to cover whatever remained with a fresh coat of paint. If they ignored the heavily stained wall, and the overpowering stench of blood masked by heavy cleaning products, the bedroom almost seemed back to normal. Tamiya discarded her gloves and accepted the spliff from Milly. 

After Aelita joined them, the four sat heavily on Milly’s bed, lost in their own thoughts. 

In the silence, Yumi felt a strong camaraderie with the women next to her; Aelita especially. Something - or someone - dangerous was targeting Boulogne-Billancourt in increasingly disturbing ways. Yumi, Aelita, and Milly were no longer safe in their own homes; and who knew how long it would be before Tamiya or even the detectives fell victim to similar acts. 

_‘Or worse,’_ Yumi thought, unbidden, _‘the same fate as Maïtena.’_

Death had never been an easy subject for Yumi. She didn’t know exactly why it was such a trigger, but her late grandmother’s funeral had sent the woman into a brief existential spiral the summer before university. 

_“Yumi, you need to snap out of this, do you understand? Just leaving the fucking house isn’t going to hurt you!”_

_It had been four days since she had stepped outside of the apartment, and twenty-four hours since she had left her bed. She wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong with her, it wasn’t as though she was close to her grandmother; but seeing the woman motionless in that coffin had caused something inside of Yumi to snap, and suddenly the threat of death was everywhere._

_A week after the funeral, Yumi gathered up the courage to go back to work; but the fear lingered every time she stepped off of the curb to cross the street, or waited for the métro, or walked home alone in the dark._

This time, when Aelita offered the spliff, Yumi accepted it. 

“I know I already asked you both to help us clean, but I have another favor.” Aelita broached. 

The reporter and editor waited for her to continue. 

“Yumi, I need to find out what happened to Maïtena. The detectives aren’t going to keep me updated, that much I’m sure of, but I need to find her killer.”

The unspoken part, the part where Aelita needed to exact justice for her dead friend, settled between the four women. For Aelita and Milly, the death was personal in more ways than one: if a sex worker was slaughtered in Boulogne-Billancourt, what were the odds that other sex workers were next?

The silence dragged on for a few more beats, broken only by the sound of embers sizzling and the exhalation of smoke, a pleasant high settling over the four of them.

“Whatever information you need, Aelita. I’ll get it for you, I promise.” 

As the pink-haired woman’s face lit up with surprised gratefulness, Yumi found herself wondering what exactly she was getting herself into.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**[Unknown 10:04 PM] Salut Détective, c’est Yumi Ishiyama.**

Ulrich glanced up at himself in the mirror, watching his reflection slowly fuzz out of focus as steam from the shower filled the bathroom.

He had spent the afternoon at the precinct’s gym, gloveless, letting his anger and frustration out on the punching bags and weights. He was sweaty and sore, and his knuckles were bruised and swollen from the force of his emotional assault. His hands twinged in pain as he adjusted the temperature nozzles, choosing to ignore his phone for the moment.

The past twelve hours had been tense in his and Odd’s shared apartment, with neither wanting to admit they were wrong for their own individual actions. In truth, they had both taken careless risks that could’ve gotten them fired.

 _‘But only one of those fuck-ups really jeopardizes the case.’_ Ulrich thought bitterly, dropping his towel on the floor before stepping under the spray of the showerhead. _‘And it sure as hell wasn’t breaking Nicolas’s nose.’_

He pressed his forearms against the tile, letting the scalding hot water scorch his back and turn his skin bright pink.

If fighting with his roommate-slash-work partner wasn’t enough, he mused, the universe had to drop a very attractive, very off limits, reporter into his life. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be drawn to Yumi as deeply as he was, especially since she had been the one to leak private police records and nearly blow an entire three months’ worth of surveillance on a sex-trafficking investigation; but god if she wasn’t alluring in all the ways Ulrich liked.

 _‘Intelligent.’_ He reminded himself, a bit too quickly, before getting to work shampooing his hair and body. _‘She’s intelligent. And she just so happens to be a person of interest in two of your cases.’_

He rinsed the soap off of his body, lingering a moment longer under the warmth of the spray to ease his aching muscles, before turning the water off and stepping out to dry himself. The conversation with Yumi was still open, and she had sent another text:

**[Unknown 10:17 PM] Not an emergency! Just respond when you can.**

Before he could talk himself out of it, he replied:

**[Ulrich 10:18 PM] Salut, ça va ? Qu’est-ce qui se passe, mademoiselle ?**

Ulrich wrapped the towel around his waist and exited the bathroom, making his way past the sitting area and into the kitchen. Odd was standing resignedly over the stove, a spatula in one hand and a bottle of spaghetti sauce in the other. Over his boxers and t-shirt was an old apron that one of his sisters had gifted him for christmas the year before; the entire scene was comical to Ulrich, and he snorted in amusement before snatching a beer from the fridge. 

Odd looked him up and down, rolling his eyes. “I cook for you, and this is the thanks I get?”

It was as though the tension around them eased, their good-natured tête-à-tête replacing the apologies too uncomfortable to put into words. Ulrich dropped into one of the chairs and popped the beer open on the edge of the table, much to Odd’s chagrin, before responding.

“Thank you for cooking, connard, but you know I hate mushrooms and you put mushrooms in there.” 

He ducked just in time as Odd flung one of the aforementioned vegetables in his direction. 

_Buzz buzz._ Yumi had responded. 

**[Unknown 10:26 PM] Rien de spécial...I told you that you didn’t need to be formal with me.**

He edited her contact name before another text message came in:

**[Yumi I. 10:26 PM] En fait...j’ai une question pour vous.**

**[Ulrich 10:26 PM] Ah bon ? Et c’est quoi ?**

Odd slid a dish in front of him before serving himself. “Are you going to eat in a towel or are you going to go put some clothes on, Stern?” 

The blond withheld the knife and fork as Ulrich reached for them. 

“Non, non, non. Clothes on, s’il te plaît!” 

Ulrich begrudgingly got up, making a show of stomping down the hall and into his room to retrieve a pair of boxers and a tank top. When he got back, Odd was snooping through his phone.

The detective quickly snatched it away, glaring at the blond. “Privacy please.”

Anger flared in Odd’s eyes and a red flush crept up his neck. “You’re talking to that reporter? Are you serious?” 

Ulrich knew they were both too tired from the week, too frustrated with each other; it was unsurprising that the peace between them had lasted all of five minutes before something else ignited an argument. Odd slid his chair back, pulling himself to his full height to face Ulrich. 

“Why are you talking to the reporter, Ulrich?”

“I don’t have to answer that.”

“I’m your fucking work partner, Ulrich! Putain de merde!” He threw his dish into the sink, the clatter startling both of them. “First you assault another officer, now this? Are you...are you fucking mental!?”

The brunet’s nostrils flared with each labored breath as his blood began to simmer. He turned away, willing himself to calm down. He had never been this angry at Odd before, and it scared him. 

Maybe he was finally losing it. 

“Where the fuck are you going, Ulrich!? I’m not done talking to you!” Odd grabbed his shoulder as he tried to leave the kitchen, and the detective wheeled around, his fist hitting the wall where Odd’s head had been not seconds before. 

The sudden explosion of anger chastened the two men, and they watched each other, wide-eyed and breathing hard. Ulrich was so angry; at the case, at the violence perpetrated against Aelita and Maïtena, at the other officers in the station and their taunting words. Everything in his life this week seemed out of control, and the lack of sleep wasn’t doing him any favors, but now he had nearly punched his partner - his best friend - and the shock and hurt on Odd’s face left Ulrich’s limbs weak with emotional exhaustion. 

“Je suis desolé.” He muttered, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m not hungry, I’m going to my room.” 

He was grateful when Odd finally nodded and let him leave, and he trudged into his room before shutting the door with a gentle click. Clambering onto his bed took the rest of his energy, and he laid down on his back to stare at the ceiling as his heart rate finally slowed down. 

_Buzz buzz._ Perfect fucking timing. 

**[Yumi I. 10:45 PM] What are you doing Thursday? I was hoping I can tail you for the day for an article I’m writing.**

A soft knock at his door made him look up, and he quickly typed out a response to the reporter:

**[Ulrich 10:46 PM] The little skirmish with another officer landed me night patrol duty, so the day will be spent at the precinct’s gym and range. Boring stuff.**

As an afterthought, he added:

**[Ulrich 10:46 PM] But you’re welcome to tag along if you’d like?**

“Come in.” He said, turning his phone on silent and placing it on the nightstand. Odd opened the door and squeezed through, making his way to Ulrich’s bed to flop down next to him. They were silent for a few moments, listening to each other’s breathing, neither wanting to be the first to break the tension between them. Odd glanced over at him. 

“Do you regret being my partner?” The blond asked, lower lip bitten between his teeth in worry. 

Ulrich sighed. “Do you regret being mine?”

“Not a day in my life.” Odd rolled onto his side, facing Ulrich. “Can I sleep in here, tonight? I’m lazy, I’d rather not walk all the way back to my room.”

The detective offered his partner a gentle smile, hesitant to call the other out on his bluff. He didn’t mind Odd’s need for physical closeness from whoever he could get it from, platonic or romantic; especially on nights where the blond was painfully anxious and wound up. Ulrich could feel the nervous energy coming off of him in waves. 

“As long as you don’t kick me in your sleep again. I love you, man. You know that right?”

Next to him, Odd rustled around to get comfortable. “Yeah, I love you, too.”

As Odd’s breathing evened out and before Ulrich, himself, began to drift off, he checked his phone one last time.

**[Yumi I. 10:55 PM] Bien ! Then it’s a date.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of a filler chapter...as a treat. I'm definitely digging Elisabeth's character - she's been very fun to write so far!
> 
> EpsilonTarantula is the best beta reader, I'm so fortunate to have their help in looking over my work before posting. Please go check out their fic Garage Kids which is being updated on FF.net and AO3!
> 
> And thank you to @/caleblegend_ on twitter for listening to me ramble about this fic and thank you to CJ for willingly refreshing my grammar <3
> 
> Songs I listened to while writing this chapter:  
>  _I Go Away_ by MNDR  
>  _We Are The People_ by Empire of the Sun  
>  _Black Mambo_ by Glass Animals


	8. The Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Domestic Violence  
> 2\. Domestic Violence against sex workers  
> 3\. Mentions of underage sex work  
> 4\. Recreational drug and tobacco use  
> 5\. Anti-semitism/anti-semitic slurs  
> 6\. Violence  
> 7\. Descriptions of bodily trauma and an autopsy

It had been a few days since their kitchen squabble and the start of their night patrol punishment, but in that time neither of the detectives had said more than a handful of words to each other. Odd found himself increasingly uncomfortable in Ulrich’s presence, and Ulrich in Odd’s, as they navigated the uncertain cavern between them. To make matters worse, Odd’s night terrors had renewed tenfold; images of masked butchers and sanguinary corpses leaving him a shaky, sweaty mess by the time he woke up. 

He wasn’t sure he could handle nightmares and new cases at the same time, meaning it was a lucky break that the past few nights had been exceptionally quiet; an out of place occurrence for Boulogne-Billancourt.

Admittedly, the first half of the week had been much better than the previous one, with more wins than losses in terms of the case. Jeremie had spent an ungodly amount of hours scouring the personal effects of Gustave Chardin for evidence, bagging and labeling everything he could for the detectives. He had even commandeered a whiteboard with markers and turned it into a crime bulletin where they could keep up with the new developments; pictures of Aelita, Maïtena, Yumi, and Gustave were pinned next to pictures of evidence and short scribbled ramblings linking them to dates, times, and places that they needed to know. 

“I’ve been wracking my brains for how Maïtena and Gustave could be connected,” Odd broached, “and I’ve really only come up with a handful of answers.”

Ulrich had been tapping on his thighs to the beat of the music playing softly on the stereo, but the sudden disturbance gave him pause. Odd took this as a signal to continue. 

“Obviously based on her job, he could have been a client. They might have met when he picked her up working a corner.” 

His partner nodded in silent assent.

“I, uh, also came to the realization that Maïtena and Gustave are both connected to Yumi Ishiyama.”

The detective knew that bringing it up would renew their near week-long stand-off, but it was the strongest and most readily available connection between the two victims so far. Yumi had been “gifted” Gustave Chardin’s hands and pronounced the inspiration for his murder. She was also one of the last people to speak to Maïtena, using the dead woman’s sex work experiences for her Kadic articles. Granted, Odd had no qualms ruling her out as the actual murderer, but it was clear to him that she was involved in some way; for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t clear to Ulrich, as well. 

Ulrich shot him a scathing look. “We’re back to that now, are we?”

Odd shifted uncomfortably, but held firm. “Elisabeth made a good point, okay? We didn’t book Ishiyama. I think that was a lapse in judgement on our part.”

 _‘Actually, on Ulrich’s part.’_ He kept that thought to himself. 

“Agreeing with Sissi, ah?” Ulrich snarked back. “Well, I’m seeing Yumi tomorrow. I’ll keep an eye on her and make sure she stays out of trouble for you.”

Odd braced both hands on the steering wheel. He was glad the cruiser was parked with the ignition off; Ulrich’s bad attitude was starting to get his hackles up, and he knew he couldn’t drive and lecture his partner at the same time. 

“Oh yeah, I’m sure you’ll ‘keep an eye on her’.” Odd muttered, noting with satisfaction his partner’s amused snort hidden under the guise of a frustrated sigh. 

The pair fell into another round of uncomfortable silence as Ulrich’s music continued to play. Around the parked cruiser, cars and pedestrians were scarce, the lateness of the night drawing lingering night-owls to their homes in favor of sleep. Odd smiled softly, remembering a game he used to play as a paramedic while waiting for calls in the ambulance. Every late night straggler had a life of their own that the detective would never know about, and to pass time he would try to guess what their story could be: were they married? Did they have kids? Out shopping or meeting a friend for drinks? For each fleeting moment he forged a connection with a stranger before jumping to the next as the ambulance rolled on. Until moving in with Ulrich, the ambulance game had been the thing to keep him grounded on the most difficult nights and preserve his sanity until the end of each shift.

Odd was so deep in thought that he almost missed the softly spoken words coming from the passenger side of the cruiser.

“I don’t like fighting with you, man. I don’t like…” Ulrich motioned between the two of them, “this tension, or whatever.” 

Ulrich twitched restlessly, but Odd once again held firm; a poker face with baited breath, the blond could pretend he hadn’t heard Ulrich while the brunet readied himself to spill his guts further.

“I don’t know why I punched Nicolas. He was just making me so angry, and I was already so fucking tired. I know I messed up...and kept messing up this weekend.” The brunet hedged, not wanting to put into words how he had nearly clocked his best friend, and Odd couldn’t blame him. “This case is driving me spare. I’ve never seen anything so terrifying in my life, and in a matter of days it’s wrung my brain out like a dish towel.”

Anyone else listening to the conversation could have easily ignored the unspoken insecurities in Ulrich’s tone, chalking the softness of his voice up to the quiet and stillness around them. It really did take one to know one, Odd mused as he finally faced his partner. The darkness had a habit of tearing down walls, and he knew this wouldn’t be the first or last time that whispered confessions of trepidation would be shared between the two of them.

In exchange for Ulrich’s honesty, Odd offered up his own. “I thought leaving EMS would make everything - all the nightmares - go away. Here I am, a week into a double homicide case, waking up in fits because I’m terrified. You’re not the only one who’s exhausted, and you’re not the only one fucking up because of it.” 

Gustave Chardin’s journal was proof enough of that.

The dispatch radio crackled to life, disrupting their confab and startling them both.

_“Any available units, call coming in from The Hermitage Hotel on Rue Emile Landrin. Looks like a domestic disturbance.”_

“Rue Emile? We’re two blocks from it, go ahead and call it.” Odd ordered and turned the key, the ignition roaring to life. 

“Dispatch this is Car 167 Alpha, we’re two blocks from the hotel and on our way.”

_“Affirmative, 167. EMS is on standby with the receptionist.”_

Odd threw the gear shift into drive and maneuvered them out of the parking spot, pulling onto the main road.

“Merde, EMS is already there?” Ulrich wondered aloud while clicking the radio back into place. 

The blond shrugged, glancing in the rearview before turning down another street. Domestic disturbances were never cut-and-dry; and no matter what type of officer responded, it never got easier to see women or children cowering in fear of someone who was supposed to love them unconditionally. Odd had long since learned how to remove himself emotionally during those types of calls, but he could feel Ulrich tense next to him as the hotel came into view and the car pulled into the parking lot.

It wasn’t the sleekest of accommodations by any stretch of the imagination, equating to more of a one star motorway motel than a Parisian vacation lodging. The lobby was small, and the detectives were immediately welcomed with a wave from the receptionist, who was speaking in hushed tones to a tired but amicable Emily LeDuc.

The paramedic’s face lit up when her eyes landed on Ulrich, and Odd made a beeline for the receptionist.

“I apologize for the lateness of the hour,” the elderly woman told Odd, “but I thought to call the police for the safety of our guests.”

Odd shook his head in reassurance. “No, Madame, you did the right thing. What’s going on?”

The receptionist led them to the elevator, waiting for the three first responders to enter before pressing the button for the sixth floor. 

“Several of our guests said they saw a man come in with a young lady and that it seemed a bit suspicious but they didn’t think it was their business. About ten minutes ago I got a call from one of the guests saying that they could hear yelling coming from the couple’s room on the sixth floor and that it didn’t sound good.”

“Did you get a good look at the couple?” Ulrich asked. 

The woman shook her head. “No, I started my shift after they had checked in. I got here just in time for the yelling.”

As the elevator doors slid open to the sixth floor, a muffled shouting match could be heard echoing down the hallway. The detectives pulled their service weapons and badges, following the receptionist, while Emily brought up the rear.

Nosy onlookers ducked back inside their rooms as the four passed door after door, the yelling increasing in volume the farther down the hall they walked. Guests from the surrounding rooms were hovering around the entrance, muttering to each other in hushed tones as one of them spoke rapidly on the phone; Odd wondered if they had tried to call into dispatch as well.

“Back up.” Ulrich ordered them, flashing his badge and motioning for the receptionist to take care of the guests. “Odd, how do you want to do this?”

Emily set down her bag and positioned herself between the detectives and the onlookers, waiting for the men to make a decision. 

“Get them to answer the door, I think.” Odd huffed in amusement. He made sure the other two were ready before raising a hand and striking the solid wood door.

_BANG BANG BANG!_

“Police! Open the door!”

A gruff _shushing_ noise halted the yelling abruptly, and both sides of the door waited for the other to make the next move.

“One more warning! Open up!”

 _“See what you did, you fucking whore!?”_ The gruff voice growled. _“Now the fucking flics are here!”_

The sharp _snap_ of skin striking skin followed by a high-pitched yelp of pain spurred the detectives into action. They both turned to the receptionist as the yelling and screaming renewed, while more guests poked their heads out of their doorways to find the source of the commotion.

“Do you have a spare key?” Odd demanded, eyeing the lock.

The elderly receptionist searched her pockets frantically, but came up empty. “I, oh, no...I left it downstairs…”

_‘Guess I’m doing it the old-fashioned way, then.’_

Odd pulled away from the door and placed a well-aimed kick with the heel of his shoe just above the lock; once, twice, three times until the door swung open and slammed into the wall behind it. He then thundered inside, service pistol aloft, and scanned the room with his eyes…

...immediately ducking as something thick and made of glass came flying towards his head. 

Before he could regain his bearings, two heavy arms and a toned chest crashed into him, sending them both down hard and causing the detective’s gun to skitter across the carpet and farther into the room. The fog of shock and adrenaline cleared and Odd parried a set of punches aimed for his face and throat, landing a solid hit to his attacker’s jaw. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a young woman scramble to her feet and rush towards the door, stumbling gratefully into Emily’s arms. 

“Freeze!” Ulrich barked, gun aloft and pointed at Odd’s attacker. Whatever uncertainty that had plagued him in the car was gone, his hands steady as he lined up the shot. “Get up, hands on your head! Now, connard!” 

The attacker slowly removed himself from Odd’s chest and made a show of haughtily placing his hands on his head. The grin on his face was looking less natural by the second, and Odd quickly suspected that the man wasn’t sober. 

“Face the window. What’s your name?” Ulrich asked, stepping in front of Odd so the other detective could safely get to his feet. 

The suspect barked out a guffaw that quickly fizzled into a hacking fit. 

“I don’t talk to cops,” He rasped, “so save your breath.”

Ulrich motioned for Odd to take care of the victim, pulling out handcuffs with one hand and keeping his firearm trained towards the suspect’s back with the other. “Go help Emily, I’ll get him cuffed and down to the cruiser.”

With the receptionist’s help, Emily had escorted the young woman down a few more doors and into a small seating area. The chairs looked painfully uncomfortable; the kind that Odd’s maternal grandmother would have bought for her “sitting room” and upholstered with plastic covers to keep her messy grandchildren from spilling drinks on. There were six Della Robbia children after all, each one more boisterous than the next.

“Can you tell me your name?” Emily crouched in front of the woman, pulling a lucozade and packet of tissues from her EMS bag.

“Julie...” The woman hiccupped, gratefully accepting the tissues and wiping fervently at her own face. Odd stepped back, self-conscious, when Julie eyed him nervously. 

Oblivious, Emily continued on and pulled a stethoscope and flashlight from her bag. “Hello, Julie; I’m Emily, I’m a paramedic. This is Detective Della Robbia, he’s the detective that responded to the call. He’s just going to ask you some questions while I check you out. Open your eyes wide for me, Julie.”

Odd tried to offer the young woman a disarming smile while Emily shined a flashlight into her eyes. 

“Julie, are you under the influence of drugs at the moment?” The paramedic asked, her stethoscope pressed just above Julie’s heart. The young woman’s eyes flicked frantically from the paramedic to the detective and back again as denial formed on the tip of her tongue, and Emily’s question drew Odd’s attention to Julie’s twitching hands, dilated pupils, and red-ringed nose.

He pulled his notepad out slowly, as not to alarm her, before holding out a placating hand. “It’s okay, Mademoiselle. We’re not here to get you, we want to protect you from the man we arrested.”

After receiving encouragement from the paramedic, Julie gave Odd a quick nod, looking everywhere but into his eyes.

“That’s okay, Julie. Can you tell me how old you are?” Odd asked.

“Sixteen.”

He dampened his facial expression down as hard as possible when his stomach dropped at her answer. The man they had arrested had a youthful appearance, but he was very obviously pushing the forty-five year mark; his head balding on top with grey beginning to peek out from the dirty blonde roots in his mustache and beard. Odd couldn’t wait to get this pig inside the interrogation room, and his hand pressed the pen harder into the paper as disgust bubbled up in his chest. 

“Julie, did he bring you here against your will? Or did you meet him somewhere? Possibly online or something?” Emily filled in for Odd as he continued scribbling notes.

Julie again shifted uncomfortably and took a sip of lucozade to delay her response. Odd was prepared to remind her that she wasn’t under arrest until she swallowed and broke her silence. 

In the smallest voice, she muttered, “I...well, I was working.”

“Working?” Odd asked, eyes never leaving his notepad. He hissed when Emily pinched his leg, her raised eyebrows and wide eyes imploring him to make the connection. 

Working? Working… _oh_.

Julie was a sex worker. They had just arrested a man for assaulting a sex worker. 

Where did that sound familiar?

In his mind’s eye, Julie’s face shifted in front of him, the features morphing slowly from a round, button nose to an elegantly elongated one; mousey brown hair and chocolate eyes turning bright blonde and ocean blue; a perfectly unmarred throat paling as blue and purple ligature marks sprouted there before a glinting blade swung down and-

“Detective Della Robbia?” 

Both Emily and Julie were eyeing him suspiciously, causing him to realize how labored his breathing had become. 

“Oh, you’re...I see.” The detective hid his flushed face and chose to continue looking down at his notebook. Emily had packed her stethoscope and flashlight and was now waiting impatiently on him to wrap up the interview. 

“Just, uh, just one more question and then Emily will be taking you to the hospital. Right, Emily?” When the paramedic nodded her assent, he turned back to Julie. “Do you know the name of the man we just arrested, Mademoiselle?”

This time, the young woman didn’t hesitate in her response, and Odd found himself strangely proud of the vindication in her unwavering voice.

“His name is Peter Duncan.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One-way mirrors were endlessly fascinating, in Odd’s opinion. 

Jeremie had explained to him an increasing handful of times how they worked, but it tended to go in one ear and out the other; as was typical of most things the forensic technician said to him. 

The small office on the other side of the interrogation room felt crowded as recording equipment and filing cabinets surrounded himself, Ulrich, and another officer from the night crew.

“Peter Duncan, forty-five years of age, from Marseille, France.” Ulrich read aloud from the suspect’s file. “He’s a real piece of work, that’s for sure.”

Getting the suspect searched and fingerprinted had taken more time than Odd wanted to admit, but had yielded an unregistered firearm, an identification card, and a dime bag of cocaine; it was now past midnight in the station as they waited on the city prosecutor to arrive and start the interview. 

Next to them, the other officer snorted. “Merde, you’re telling me. I’ve booked Duncan more times than I can count. This is the first time he’s tried to bite me while I fingerprinted him, though.”

The door to the office swung open and Elisabeth breezed in, her hair hanging damp and limp as though she had just stepped out of the shower. Compared to the two detectives’ slacks and long sleeve dress shirts, and the officer’s neatly pressed uniform, the prosecutor looked out of place in her tank top and jeans. Ulrich clicked his tongue in disapproval. 

“What is this, Sissi, casual Wednesday?”

The woman pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. “I’m not getting dressed up to come to the station after hours, not even for my favorite detective. Who is this guy?”

The brunet handed her the file. “We picked him up for assaulting a minor who was working the street. We thought he might be our guy, so we called you in for the interrogation.”

Odd eyed Elisabeth as she shifted uncomfortably, glancing up at the suspect then back down at the file. Perhaps it was just the case as a whole making everyone antsy and paranoid, but the prosecutor’s normally cocky and sure demeanor had been replaced by an anxious buzzing that set the detective’s teeth on edge. 

“Alright, who wants to take this one with me?” She asked, tucking the file under her arm. 

Before Ulrich could speak up, Odd volunteered.

The other two glanced at him in shock, but he shrugged and led Elisabeth out of the office without a word, ignoring the confused looks she and Ulrich gave each other behind his back. He didn’t care if she preferred Ulrich, or if the question had been rhetorical; he wanted to see this pervert squirm.

The interrogation room was colder than the rest of the precinct, and Odd found himself wishing he had a jacket as he spotted the goosebumps forming on Elisabeth’s arms, shoulders, and neck. His wishes increased when Duncan dragged his eyes along her torso in lustful hunger.

_‘Why couldn’t she put on more clothes before coming here?’_

“Bonsoir, Monsieur Duncan.” The prosecutor started, setting the file on the table in front of him. Odd took his place next to the glass, leaning against the wall in noncommittal silence. As far as this interview was concerned, he was there to keep the peace as Elisabeth worked her magic. 

He had seen her skills in action on several occasions; and although he wouldn’t admit it, her interviews never failed to impress him. The woman was tough as nails with a practiced intellect that was equal parts intimidating as it was fascinating, and Odd hoped he would never find himself on the wrong side of the table when it came to her. 

“Je m’appelle Elisabeth Delmas, je suis la procureure de Boulogne-Billancourt. I’ll be conducting your interview tonight.” She sat down on the chair opposite the man, pulling the ashtray on the table closer to herself and searching her pockets for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Hope you don’t mind; it’s late and I usually need a cigarette before bed.”

The suspect eyed her up and down in a way that made Odd’s skin crawl. He was starting to wonder if Duncan’s intoxication was contributing to his lack of sexual inhibition. 

“No bra, ah? Procureure Delmas.” Duncan articulated the last part syllable by syllable, grinning lasciviously at Elizabeth. As she tapped out a cigarette from the packet, his eyes flicked upwards and landed on the glinting Star of David that hung loosely above the hem of her tank top. “Ah, you’re a kike. C’est dommage. Does that file of yours mention what I have tattooed inside my lip?” 

Duncan leaned forward rapaciously and brought his manacled hands to his mouth, pulling down his lower lip. There, in the center, was a small, black, swastika. 

“Back up, Duncan.” Odd growled, his blood beginning to boil. 

Elisabeth held out a hand to stop the detective, lighting her cigarette with the other, but Duncan wasn’t done.

“Yes, merci, Madame Procureure! Put a leash on your tomcat!” He made a hissing noise at Odd then fell beside himself into fits of chesty laughter.

After a few drags, an ashing of her cigarette, and a half-interested perusal of Duncan’s file, the prosecutor finally spoke. “You have...quite the list of priors, Duncan. You started off with petty theft and public intoxication, and most recently...kidnapping and armed robbery, wow.”

Elisabeth turned to look at Odd. “Detective, what are we charging him with tonight?”

Odd wet his lips before answering. “Soliciting sex from a minor and public intoxication on a controlled substance.”

“Solicitation of sex from a minor.” The prosecutor repeated, half to herself. “Did you know you were paying a minor for sex?”

“I don’t need to solicit sex from whores. I was making sure she didn’t stiff me on my cut.”

The detective hid a smirk. Elisabeth was riling Duncan up, and the pervert was taking the bait.

“Oh, your cut? That would make you her…”

“Pimp.” Odd finished for her, stomach twisting at the wink she threw his way before returning her full attention back to Duncan.

The suspect clammed up, his eyes narrowed to slits in his stewing hatred of the woman across from him. Odd bristled and twitched his hands as Elisabeth moved from her chair to the corner of the table, putting herself closer to Duncan. The prosecutor was no lamb, not by a long shot, but the man in front of her was much worse than a lion; the mental capacities left unaffected by the narcotics in his system were steeped in a darkness that was palpable in the air around them. Odd wouldn’t undermine her stature, as technicalities ruled her the superior on this stage, but he suddenly ached to put himself between her and the danger across from them.

 _‘Maybe we should get a psych eval on him after this.’_ He wondered. 

Elisabeth took a final drag from her cigarette and stubbed it out on the ashtray. “Monsieur Duncan, pimping out a minor is a serious offense; one that I would aim to prosecute to the full extent of the law. That being said, I might be able to strike a deal with you if you cooperate on another case we’re looking into.” 

She placed a photo of Maïtena in front of the man. “Do you know this woman, Monsieur Duncan?”

Duncan leaned forward, eyeing the photo. 

“Nope.” He said with a pop that emphasized the ‘p’.

The prosecutor hummed in dissent and stood up to pace in front of the glass. Odd felt his muscles unwind the more distance she gained from Duncan. 

“Right. Can you tell me where you were last Thursday between the hours of 1 a.m. and 8 a.m., please?”

The suspect rolled his eyes. “So I can give you some made-up crime to plant on me? No thanks. I’m done talking to you.”

She glanced at Odd, a hint of uncertainty in her features. Up until now, Duncan had risen to every morsel of bait she dangled in front of him. It seemed her luck was starting to run out. 

“Are you telling me you want a lawyer, then?”

He barked out a laugh and leaned forwards, his mouth twisting into a snarl. “Je déteste les avocats, sale pute. You should see what I did to the last court-appointed counsel they gave me; he was in the hospital for two weeks.”

The bait had gotten tastier.

“You think you scare me, Peter Duncan, but you don’t. If you don’t want a lawyer, I’ll continue asking my questions. Do you have an alibi for last Thursday or not?”

Something shifted in the man’s countenance as the prosecutor told him off, and he regarded her thoughtfully when she returned to pacing in front of him. To Odd, the back and forth tracking movements of Duncan’s eyes were reminiscent of predators biding their time, making their prey comfortable, until they could strike. He tried to shake off the worry and protective instinct, knowing just what Elisabeth would call him if he voiced his concern to her about Duncan’s behavior. 

“En fait, Madame Procureure, I was here. Being booked. Got out the next afternoon.” 

His sudden candor gave her pause. “Do you remember which officer booked you?”

“No, but I’m sure you won’t be hard-pressed to find the one who did. I gave him a nasty fat lip.”

Now that Odd thought about it, Mathias Burrel had come in Friday morning with a split lip that he had blamed on a detainee. 

He nodded in Elisabeth’s direction when she looked to him for some sort of confirmation. 

“Fine. We’ll look into confirming that. How about this man, do you know him?” She held out a picture of Gustave Chardin, the same picture from Yumi Ishiyama’s newspaper article. 

Peter Duncan’s eyes didn’t waiver as he kept them trained on Elisabeth’s face, ignoring the photograph entirely as recognition began to bloom. “Elisabeth Delmas. Delmas, Delmas...Delmas.”

She bit back a frustrated sigh. “Oui, Monsieur Duncan?”

“You’re Jean Pierre’s bitch, aren’t you? No, no...you’re much too young…”

Elisabeth dropped the photo onto the table and stood back, her shoulders tensing imperceptibly. “Monsieur Duncan, can we please stay on-”

“Oh...I see...talk about nepotism. Taking over the prosecution seat from your _mother_!”

Elisabeth sucked in a breath and Odd could see her jaw clench tighter and tighter as she ground her teeth, a red flush creeping up the back of her neck. 

“Ah, so you _are_ the daughter. Once upon a time, she said the same exact thing to me in this same exact room, you know; pretending she wasn’t the least bit afraid of me. Tell me, _Elisabeth_ ,” he spat her name as though it were foul on his tongue, “are you also getting fucked good and hard by the police department? Or was your mother just the precinct whore?”

Odd’s eyebrows flew upwards on his forehead and he slammed his teeth shut to keep his jaw from dropping. Elisabeth’s mother was a prosecutor? No one in the precinct had mentioned that to him, least of all Ulrich or Elisabeth, herself. He pushed himself off the wall, drawing to his full height. “Last warning, Duncan. Keep it respectful or I’m putting you back in a cell and we can try this again later.”

The suspect’s eyes flitted over to Odd before returning to Elisabeth, whose muscles had wound tighter still in anger. 

“You know what I think, Duncan? I think that as long as I can hold you here for pimping out sixteen-year-old girls, I can keep interrogating you for suspicion of assaulting and murdering a twenty-seven-year-old sex worker on Rue Gallieni.” She stepped to the side of the table, getting closer to Duncan. “You want to continue being a foul-mouthed prick, be my guest, but eventually the cocaine in your system will wear out and you’ll be itching for another fix; and I’m going to let you sweat it out on this table like the junkie filth you are-”

In a flash, Duncan shot up from his seat, kicking the table as hard as he could in the detective’s direction; it flipped and slid into the detective’s legs, sending him toppling towards the ground. Duncan then grabbed Elisabeth by the throat and slammed her against the wall next to the door. 

“You small-chested, anorexic, bitch! You know what I’d do to a little kike slut like yourself, ah? You know what I’d do!?” His snarls sprayed frothing spit onto her face and she choked as he pressed the middle chain of the handcuffs further into her neck, causing her face to turn red. “I’d tear you into fucking pieces with my bare hands! I’ll rip your fucking eyes out!!”

Red was creeping into Odd’s vision as he scrambled back to his feet. Each step towards Duncan felt predatory - violent - and unbridled rage had taken over by the time he snatched the man by the lapels, dragging him away from Elisabeth and against the opposite wall. 

“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH HER!” Odd roared. “Don’t you FUCKING touch her!”

His cognizance of the room around him disappeared, Ulrich and the other officer’s hands unrecognizable as they yanked and tore a thrashing and screeching Duncan from Odd’s claw-like grip. He didn’t come back to himself until the officers had dragged the suspect from the room and halfway down the hall, the scuffle growing quieter and quieter as they took him back to a cell.

Odd choked down a few deep breaths and willed the red out of his vision. The jack-hammering of his heart into his ribcage was making him lightheaded and nauseous, and a clearing of his raw throat told him he had been growling at Duncan for longer than he thought.

A choked sob drew his attention to the hallway, and the reason for his sudden, blinding rage came flooding back to him. 

In the commotion of his assault on Duncan and Ulrich’s flight into the room, the prosecutor had made a hasty exit out of the interrogation chamber and halfway down the hall. 

“Elisabeth…” Odd approached, uncertainly. She attempted a reassuring smile through eyes glassy with unshed tears, her hands trembling as they rubbed at the red marks on her neck.

“Are you okay? Let me see…” He reached down as gently as he could, pulling her hand away from her throat and replacing it with his own. The finger marks there would likely bruise by the morning, but more worrying to him was a long scratch where Duncan’s handcuffs had caught the skin. A tiny rivulet of blood had formed, already beginning to dry in a track towards her clavicles. “I think Jeremie has a first aid kit in his office.”

But neither moved, and Odd’s hand stayed firm but gentle on her neck, his thumb wiping back and forth against her jaw as his eyes flicked up from the finger marks to meet hers. This wasn’t the same cocky Elisabeth from the beginning of the interview; the take-no-shit and never-back-down prosecutor who got the information she needed in any way she could; the loud, foul-mouthed, confident woman. The trembling in her hands was spreading to her arms and shoulders, and she stiffened when Odd wiped a tear from her cheek.

How unfortunate, he mused, that it had taken something so violent to see this woman in a new light. Months of writing her off as Boulogne-Billancourt’s callous, heartless, bitch suddenly felt judgmental and unwarranted; what was that saying about vulnerabilities being revealed under pressure? He could feel his own facade of ambivalence cracking as they continued to stare at each other, Elisabeth slowly beginning to calm under his gaze.

“I’m sorry.” She muttered, her eyes softer than he ever remembered them being. “If I’d kept my cool, you wouldn’t have had to intervene. I let him get to me.”

The detective shook his head, opening his mouth to tell her that it was okay, that he went in there knowing he had her back…

“Hey! Sissi, ça va?” 

Odd snatched his hand away as though he’d been burned, the white noise in his brain having drowned out his partner’s footsteps. Ulrich stepped into place next to him, oblivious to the pair’s momentary intimacy, pulling the woman into a hug that she gratefully accepted. He watched as her countenance shifted from the vulnerable and trepidatious state he had just witnessed to a lighthearted and joking one in Ulrich’s presence.

“Of course. It takes more than some Neo-Nazi thug to upset me.”

“Do you think he’s our guy?” Ulrich asked, checking her over for more injuries than the one on her neck.

Odd scoffed, feigning a casual tone. “He threatened to rip her to shreds after she accused him of murdering a sex worker. He’s definitely high on the list for me.”

The prosecutor shook her head. “I’m not going to jump the gun, here. We’ll wait until we can confirm his alibi in the morning.”

The three lapsed into a brief silence as Ulrich continued rubbing comforting circles on the woman’s back and Odd looked anywhere but at her. 

“You should head home, Elisabeth.” Odd announced, thumping Ulrich on the shoulder. “Stern and I will make the report and straighten up the interrogation room. 

The bone-tired look of relief on her face made his heart twinge. 

“Are you sure?” She asked, sheepishly. “I kind of instigated this mess.”

Ulrich shook his head, chuckling. “Get going before Odd changes his mind; he’s being nice to you for once, I’m sure it won’t happen again.”

The blond knew it was meant as a joke, a reference to the detective and prosecutor’s strained but amicable acquaintanceship that had formed for Ulrich’s sake, but the words made him uncomfortable in the aftermath of the scene in the interrogation room. 

Instead, he offered her a tight-lipped smile. “Exactly, Elisabeth. I won’t go so easy on you next time.”

The woman’s eyes were passive, watching Odd while she pressed a kiss to Ulrich’s cheek. 

“I’ll see you two tomorrow, then.”

Odd halted in front of the interrogation room, his eyes never leaving the back of Elisabeth’s head as she strode away from them and turned towards the glass doors, out of sight. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“25 of June, 06:00 at Boulogne-Billancourt forensics lab. Based on samples from the body of Gustave Chardin and samples of the hands delivered to a Mademoiselle Ishiyama, I can conclude that the hands do in fact belong to him. Although, I had already had my suspicions.” Jeremie announced into his handheld recorder, his hands moving delicately over the severed appendages with a sharp scalpel. The amount of work needed on this case had haunted him the entire night, and by 4:15 a.m. his body was sick of tossing and turning in bed, itching to get back to the lab.

The technician glanced over at the morgue drawer that held Maïtena’s cracked, dissected, and tagged body parts. He had finally completed her autopsy an hour after arriving, with nearly nothing to show for it. Whoever had chopped her up was smart, leaving minimal evidence of their identity behind. Unfortunately, Gustave’s body wasn’t much better. Jeremie had bagged and tagged all of the CEO’s personal effects; making quick work of taking samples, examining them under slides, and recording his observations through scribbled notes and audio files. This morning would be devoted to a full autopsy of Chardin’s body, head, and hands. 

He really wished he didn’t have to break those autopsies into chunks to accommodate the severed nature of his corpse. The video they had watched in the presence of the Kadic News reporter came to the forefront of the forensic technician’s mind and he huffed out a heavy sigh; the brutality of this crime was unparalleled to anything he’d seen in Boulogne-Billancourt before.

Working homicides was just a part of the job description, especially in an arrondissement that was eight kilometers from the center of Paris. There were always exceptions, but larger cities had precedence over the vast majority of violent crimes; especially violent crimes that required a semblance of anonymity. 

Serial killing just so happened to be one of those. 

It wasn’t exactly true that they had a serial killer on their hands. For one, they hadn’t linked the two crimes together through evidence and for another, there weren't yet enough bodies to quantify a serial killer. As much of a stickler for the rules as Jeremie was, even he could admit that they sometimes stepped in the way of a strong supposition. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that the Lecuyer and Chardin cases were connected - afterall, not only did they have a glaringly obvious shared symbol but also the similar dissection of the bodies - they just had to prove themselves right in the face of bureaucracy. 

For Jeremie, that was the part that kept him up at night. What if, despite all evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t up to the challenge of finding the proof that landed a conviction? There was a profusion of places in between the crime scene and the guilty verdict that allowed for any number of missteps on the technician’s part. He had to be painstakingly detail oriented in his investigation of justice or his superiors and the opposing counsel would rip him to shreds on the witness stand. 

“Ulrich and Odd better appreciate how early I got here for them.” He muttered, setting his scalpel into a tray of sanitizing solution before moving the head and hands to another examination table.

On his way back to the central part of Chardin’s corpse, Jeremie grabbed a bottle of saline, a bottle of formaldehyde, and a set of arterial and jugular tubes from the counter next to the sink. 

Admitting that the chance to use rib cutters and a bone saw to aid in his scientific investigation was a conversation he had yet to broach with his two coworkers and friends, and he smirked to himself imagining the face Odd would make if he could see the sharpness of the knife he was about to use to pull back the skin on Chardin’s chest.

“Does autopsy get you hard, Belpois?” A voice asked from near the double doors, startling Jeremie and causing him to drop the scalpel. It fell to the floor with a clatter that echoed around the room, bouncing off of every metal surface. 

The technician eyed the unwelcome guest before bending down to retrieve the hastily discarded tool. 

“Officer Poliakoff, you shouldn’t sneak up on me when I’m about to perform an autopsy.” He placed the compromised knife into the sanitation tray. “It’s a delicate art, and I need the utmost concentration.”

Jeremie bit back a smirk at the slowly yellowing bruise around Nicolas’s eyes and nose, remembering the fight he and Ulrich had gotten into Friday morning. Lieutenant Morales had sent the officer home before Jeremie could get a good look at him, but it seemed that Ulrich had managed a clean hit during their scuffle. That much was unsurprising, as Ulrich spent countless hours training in Pencak Silat the way Jeremie spent countless hours studying the pros and cons of using the Virchow versus the Rokitansky techniques during an autopsy.

Nicolas prowled forward, closing the space between himself and the examination table in front of Jeremie. “As if I’d want to be in here willingly, Belpois. I came to check on the fingerprint analysis I asked you to do last week. Dunbar and I are still working on that robbery case.”

The technician mentally kicked himself; he knew he had forgotten something. In his defense, Captain Delmas had made it clear that the double homicide was of the utmost importance in the forensics lab, and Jeremie had delegated any lesser tasks to be done by Herve…who clearly hadn’t done it. 

“Ah, I do apologize, Officer. I’ll get that done as soon as I can, but as you can see I’m a bit backed up at the moment.”

Nicolas raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Right, but I asked you last week before the Lecuyer case to do that fingerprint analysis for me, Belpois. Here we are, over a week later…”

If possible, the air in the morgue turned colder. Jeremie didn’t like any of the officers, Ulrich and Odd (barely) being the exceptions, but there was something downright uncomfortable about Nicolas’s overbearing presence. He had a threatening aura that made everyone around him feel like they were being pressed smaller and smaller under the man’s police-issued boot until they were just a wad of gum crammed in the crevices of the sole.

“Officer Poliakoff, at the risk of sounding rude, you’ll have to take that up with Delmas. He’s the one who asked us to focus on the Lecuyer case. I’ll get Herve to do your analysis when he gets here, okay? There’s nothing I can do right now.”

The answer had the opposite effect of placating the officer, who barked out a menacing laugh.

As Nicolas continued to approach the examination table, Jeremie continued to press himself further back against the counter, regretting his choice to come in before the rest of the precinct. 

Nicolas was now standing right across from him, his face twisted into a threatening snarl. 

“Next time, I want my requests done first. I don’t care what that old fuck says. I don’t even care what those bastards Stern and Della Robbia say. I put my order in first,” the officer snatched the bottle of formaldehyde from the examination tray, “and I _get_ my order first.”

He turned to the left and pitched the bottle at the morgue drawers, sending shards of glass and drops of the stinking liquid all over the room. Jeremie flinched, but remained upright, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from losing his temper.

“I sincerely hope we won’t have this problem again, Belpois.”

“Nicolas.” Another voice came from the doorway, and Jeremie’s stomach sank further. When he glanced over, he found himself pleasantly surprised to see William Dunbar.

The raven-haired officer nodded at the forensic technician. “Ça va, Belpois?”

Jeremie nodded his head frantically, hoping the man would get the picture and collect his rabid dog of a precinct partner from the lab.

“Come on, Nicolas,” William motioned, “we’re replacing Stern and Della Robbia for morning patrol.” 

The sandy-haired officer nodded, his eyes not leaving Jeremie’s until he turned on his heel and ambled towards the double doors.

As soon as he was alone again Jeremie ripped off his gloves and shut himself in his office, his breaths coming out in harsh pants while he rocked back and forth in his desk chair. He was a forensic technician, for fuck’s sake, he didn’t need to be yelled at and threatened to do his job. 

_‘This is why I stay out of that stupid bullpen…’_ He thought as he dug in his desk drawer for his cellphone. 

Ulrich picked up on the third ring, his voice laced with masked exhaustion that Jeremie could hear right through.

 _“Qu’est-ce qui se passe, Einstein?”_ The detective asked.

Jeremie choked back a panicked whine, not trusting himself to speak. This was the first time an officer had made an overt threat to him, and he was absolutely enraged. 

_“Jer, what’s going on? Where are you?”_ In the background, Odd’s voice echoed the questions. 

“Lab. I’m in the lab. Nicolas, he came in angry. Just...can you get here, please?”

The line was muffled as Ulrich relayed the information to Odd, then the detective came back on the phone. _“We’re almost back to the precinct from patrol, hold tight and we’ll come find you.”_

The pair hung up and Jeremie tossed his phone onto the desk, running his hands through his hair and yanking as hard as he could in an attempt to ground himself; but the sound of shattering glass wouldn’t stop repeating in his head. 

Disorder. Chaos. The past week was filled with it, and Jeremie was sick of it. Officers brawling in the bullpen and smashing the lab, bodies chopped to bits. The sooner this city got back to normal, the better. 

After a moment of silent contemplation, he stood up and left his office, walking back into the lab. There wasn’t any time for quivering or cowering when there were formaldehyde bottles on the floor and butchered bodies on the examination table. A bully of a police officer meant nothing to him in the face of a rampant serial murderer who targeted vulnerable women. Jeremie steeled himself before venturing a glance at Maïtena’s morgue drawer. 

He wasn’t scared of Nicolas. He was angry. 

That, however, didn’t stop him from breathing a sigh of relief as Odd and Ulrich raced into the lab with equally earnest looks of concern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta readers have been working super hard on their own amazing projects, so please bear with me! 
> 
> Makalyta on tumblr has made the most INCREDIBLE fanart for Bad Moon Rising. I am literally in awe of their talent and how beautiful the piece is. Please go to makalyta.tumblr.com to see the piece and give their other works some love!
> 
> Thank you to EpsilonTarantula on AO3/FF.net and CJ for their continued work beta reading, and thank you to VictorineMarguerite for editing my novice french!
> 
> Because I'm a sucker for ships and have been working on some ship stuff, let me know what CL ships you love in the comments!


	9. Hey Little Sister, What Have You Done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Police Violence  
> 2\. Explicit Videotapes  
> 3\. Mentions of Sexual Assault and Underage Sex Work  
> 4\. Anti-semitism  
> 5\. Recreational Drug and Tobacco Use  
> 6\. Guns  
> 7\. Violence against Sex Workers  
> 8\. Blood (lots of it)  
> 9\. Mentions of Self Harm in a non-depressive context

A bone-deep ache was slowly settling at the base of Ulrich’s skull as he nursed a half-cold mug of coffee. On an empty stomach, the liquid served only to cause shakes and a debilitating case of nausea, both of which were fighting to upend its contents. A glance at his partner next to him told Ulrich that Odd was equally worse for wear. Neither had slept in over twenty-four hours, sans the momentary lapse of wakefulness while waiting on a pot of breakroom coffee, and the morgue tables were beginning to look more comfortable the longer they leaned against them. 

“Why do you think Duncan has so many cameras?” Odd asked, nodding towards a newly placed box of electronics. In an attempt to conserve the last of his dwindling energy, Ulrich managed a weak shrug in response.

An evidence raid, led by Officer Mathias Burrel, had been conducted on Duncan’s apartment while Ulrich and Odd had finished their night patrol. If they could get their hands on something - anything - that tied the man to Maïtena or Gustave, then pimping out underage girls would be the least of his rap sheet. It was a shame, Ulrich mused, that assaulting a city prosecutor wasn’t the legal peripeteia for Duncan that it should have been.

The thought of the previous night’s interrogation only worked to twist Ulrich’s painful exhaustion into boiling rage as the bruises around Elisabeth’s neck came to the forefront of his mind. Despite requiring her signature to sign off on the interrogation and subsequent incident reports, Elisabeth hadn’t returned to the police station; instead heading straight to her office in the municipal building across the street. 

Ulrich couldn’t blame her. 

The role of city prosecutor was adversarial to the precinct on the best of days, despite the two needing to work in tandem to get anything done. One slip-up, one glimpse of weakness, and the officers would descend like a pack of wolves ready for their next meal. 

Boulogne-Billancourt precinct wasn’t known for its acceptance of women. In fact, there hadn't been any female officers in years. Just having a female city prosecutor, someone whose job was several pay grades above their own, was a brutal and unforgivable disrespect to the chauvinists of the station. This was especially true for Elisabeth. Unfortunately, word had already spread about Peter Duncan’s interrogation; blood in the water for the sharks chomping at the bit.

_Whack!_

Both detectives startled as the chain of custody forms curled in Jeremie’s hand came down on Odd’s shoulder. 

“The morgue is for working, not napping. Don’t you two have beds at home?” The technician eyed them up and down as he and Mathias returned to the center of the room. 

It was a stupid, insensitive quip and the brunet had to physically restrain himself from taking the bait by jumping down the forensic technician’s throat. Jeremie had enough on his plate as it was with Nicolas’s alpha-male expression of authority, and Ulrich knew adding his own to it would only escalate the ever-present tension that stifled the police station.

That, however, didn’t stop Ulrich from casting Jeremie a warning glare as Odd shifted uncomfortably between them. The blond’s nightmares hadn’t been this bad since leaving Boulogne-Billancourt’s paramedic team, and it was a wonder he was still on his feet and forming coherent sentences.

_A loud shout followed by panicked gasps startled Ulrich from his half slumber._

_At least a month had passed since any fear-fueled screams from his roommate had woken him up, and he’d finally become accustomed to sleeping soundly through the night. Given the macabre state of Maïtena and Gustave’s bodies, he mused, he should have expected the other shoe to drop._

_Finally extracting his legs from his tangled sheets, he stumbled out of his room and into the hallway, each step exaggerated by choice swears as his shoulders cuffed the door frames and his toes found every exposed baseboard._

_“Don’t turn on the lights!” Odd shrieked as Ulrich stepped through the doorway to his room._

_His hand hesitated above the switch, the dim light from the hallway behind him illuminating his partner’s sheet-white face. It was then that he noticed Odd’s eyes, glassy and unfocused, frantically darting in the space around them. Despite the amount of noise Ulrich had made while trudging through the apartment, the blond was seemingly still half asleep. Still caught in the grip of whatever nightmarish vision was plaguing him._

_Ulrich crossed the room in two strides and clambered onto the bed in front of his partner, his hands flying to the man’s shoulders. “Odd, Odd wake up.”_

_He shook him, hard. “Odd! ODD!”_

_The detective could pinpoint the exact moment that Odd gained consciousness, the glassy and faraway stare giving way to clarity. His shoulders slumped forward, too exhausted to hold themselves up any longer, and Ulrich caught him in his arms._

_“What happened? Was it a nightmare?”_

_Panic renewed in the man’s face at the thought of giving names to his torturers, and Ulrich hurriedly dropped the subject._

_“Sorry…’m sorry…” Odd muttered into Ulrich’s shoulder, over and over again. Ulrich pointedly ignored the slowly spreading wetness on his chest from his partner’s tears._

Even in the light of day, Odd’s eyes held a lick of faraway uncertainty, as though any moment they would once again glaze over and he’d be lost to something the others couldn’t see, hear, or feel.

Something that went bump in the night.

“Duncan’s flat was disgusting.” Mathias opened the department’s cam-corder and loaded the first video on the card, motioning for the technician and detectives to usher around for a better look. “You’d think the man would smell so much worse than he does.”

As the video started rolling, Ulrich couldn’t help but agree with Mathias’s statement. Every surface had a sticky layer of grime and grease with a coating of dust caked on top that stained the white walls and furniture a patchy, warm, grey. In the kitchen, dishes and take-out containers were piled up in the sink and several trash bags had been neglected near the bin, a swarm of needy flies descending upon them in levels that could only constitute an infestation. 

It was clear from the state of the kitchen that Peter Duncan wasn’t the type of person to clean _or_ cook. With the occasional can of soup or beans nestled amongst empty tupperware and decaying bug carcasses in the cupboards, the volume of take-out containers was beginning to make sense. 

The refrigerator wasn’t any better, and Ulrich forced down a gag as the camera-man opened the door. What little food inside had clearly been there for a while; cartons of spoiled milk and yogurt expanding as clumps formed inside, leftovers turning green and furry with age, and mold encroaching on all four corners of the refrigerator’s interior.

A closer inspection of the dishes and take-out boxes revealed an entire ecosystem of blackened mold and bacteria festering and reproducing. The camera zoomed in for a better look, and Ulrich’s stomach protested in disgust. Little white spots were scattered around the sink like confetti, creating a stark contrast to the silver material of the basin and dark brown material of the faux granite countertops. A hand appeared from off-camera and reached towards one of the white spots, triggering the entire group to wriggle back and forth in their places. A horde of maggots had taken up residence on the man’s dishes.

“That,” Odd started, his face tinged green, “is disgusting.”

Jeremie smirked, clearly unfazed. “It’s almost exactly what I expected of this guy after hearing about last night.”

Mathias shushed the two men as the video continued into the master bedroom. It was surprisingly tidy and clean, kept better than the rest of the apartment. A desk was nestled close to the door and a bed had been placed in the center of the room, the headboard flush against the wall. At the foot of the bed stood a tripod, camera nowhere to be found. 

Odd pointed at the screen. “Duncan likes to take photos, huh?”

“The question is,” the technician moved towards the electronics box and deftly pulled out a laptop and one of the cameras, plugging it in and booting both up, “of what?”

Ulrich couldn’t help but feel that a tripod in front of a bed held no positive connotation.

The files loaded, each thumbnail filtering into grainy focus, and Jeremie double-clicked on the first one. The bedroom from the police video before was now cloaked in darkness, a single figure barely illuminated by a ring light set behind the camera.

Odd smothered a chortle behind his hand. “Duncan was filming a porno?”

A larger figure, more masculine in form but with a stout belly, stepped into view from somewhere off-camera and grabbed the smaller figure by the neck, pushing her further onto the bed.

“Ugh...I really didn’t want to see old man balls, today.” Odd muttered, his face a mixture of disgust and bemusement.

There was something disturbing about the way the younger figure moved. Her limbs seemed heavy and loose as though she could barely hold them up by herself. As the man pushed her face upwards, his own visage hidden in the crook of her neck, Ulrich gasped. It was grainy, but Julie Vigourox’s button nose, wide eyes, and youthful face were still discernible, and from the looks of it, she was completely out of her mind on drugs. The man pushed Julie down flat onto the bed before dragging her towards him by her legs. 

Ulrich didn’t want to know what happened next.

“Turn it off.” He ordered, stepping away from the computer and further into the lab. His chest felt tight with panic as he tried to suck in a deep breath, and he could feel the simmering of his blood return tenfold, his hands tingling as he tried to remain inside his own head. They were now in possession of a pornographic film of an underage girl made by a psychotic, neo-nazi thug who may or may not have had a hand in Gustave and Maïtena’s deaths. A glance at the other three men told him they were just as perturbed by the film as he was.

“Who the hell was that man? There’s no way it was Duncan, Duncan’s thinner than that.” Odd stepped closer to Ulrich and placed a hand on his bicep, but the brunet hastily shook him off.

The touch was scalding on his too hot, too tight skin. As his blood heated up, he felt the urge to claw and rake at his arms; to rip off the flesh and crawl out of his own body. Of all the things Duncan was involved in, pedophilic pornography just had to be one of them, didn’t it? 

Odd was right. The man in the video wasn’t Duncan, but he’d bet good money that Duncan knew exactly who it was.

“Jesus, Ulrich! Wait!”

The brunet stalked back through the bullpen and towards the holding cells, his vision tunnelling and his ears thudding with the pressure of his racing heart. Somewhere behind him he could hear Odd’s footsteps struggling to keep up, his voice raising in volume in an attempt to get Ulrich to slow down. The commotion had drawn the attention of the entire bullpen, but Ulrich was far too focused on his own rage to notice. 

The holding cell doors crashed open and smacked into the walls behind them as Ulrich breezed through, causing William Dunbar to jump from his seat at the monitoring desk. 

“Stern, where’s the fir-” The officer didn’t have time to finish the sentence as Ulrich spotted his target.

Duncan was already leaning against the bars of his cell, and it took little effort to reach in, grab him by the lapels, and yank him forward against the steel cylinders. The dull thud of his head smacking the bars reverberated around the room. 

“We just raided your flat, Duncan!” Ulrich snarled. His fingers found the fleshiest part of the man’s neck and dug in hard through the fabric of his shirt. “Found all of your home movies. Great cinematography there, though I question the director’s use of minors as actors.”

Odd burst through the doors, Mathias hot on his heels. “Ulrich, stop! Calm down!”

Duncan’s face looked almost comical mashed against the bars of the cell. The corners of his mouth slowly pulled upwards, his eyes shifting from dull and glassy to sinister in a matter of seconds. It was then that Ulrich noticed the sharp stench of sweat emanating from the man. The collar of his shirt and seams of his underarms were soaked, leaving the material several shades darker there than the rest. 

“He’s detoxing.” William offered, stepping closer with a hand on his taser. “His urine test came back positive for...quite a few things, honestly.”

“How can I help you, officer?” Duncan slurred. He pressed his face even closer to the bars and wet his lips, causing Ulrich to lean backwards. He clearly hadn’t brushed his teeth long before being booked at the station.

“The first video on the red camera. Who is the man raping Julie Vigourox?”

Duncan made a soft, chastising, _tsk_ -ing noise. “Oh, Détective...rape is such a harsh word, don’t you think?”

The man was starting to wear Ulrich’s patience clean into the ground. What little control he had on his temper was already beginning to fade, and would likely be depleted if he didn’t get information out of Duncan soon. He could tell Odd was thinking the same thing as his partner fidgeted restlessly behind him, hand hovering in a placating motion.

“How’s your hook-nosed girlfriend, ah?” Duncan’s question was aimed towards Odd this time. “Our little spat in the other room was good foreplay. You like being cuckolded like that?”

Odd’s eyes went wide with panic, darting towards Ulrich and back again. As Duncan began thrusting his hips against the bars with a cackle, Odd schooled his expression into a threatening snarl. 

The brunet tightened his grip on Duncan’s lapels and slammed his face into the bars. The man’s legs buckled underneath him, but Ulrich dragged him back up to eye level. 

“Come on, Duncan! I can do this all day but I don’t think that forehead of yours will hold out much longer! Who is the man in the fucking video!?”

Had he really just said that? His voice sounded so threatening, even to himself. Duncan was toying with them, pulling every string and prodding every last nerve, and he was playing right into the pimp’s hands. 

It was scary just how much so. The more Duncan poked his buttons, the more something dark bubbled up inside of Ulrich; something he knew he’d be remiss to let out. Odd’s hand finally dropped onto Ulrich’s shoulder, nails digging in to ground the man. The fog of rage abated slightly, and he became aware of William and Mathias waiting in the wings in case things got out of control - in case _he_ got out of control. If he could just get the name of whatever client Julie had serviced in that video, then he could hide out in the bathroom to collect his thoughts. 

And possibly his sanity.

The balding man blew air through his nose in a snort that slowly escalated to a chuckle then a full on boisterous laugh. “You mean to tell me you don’t recognize him? He’s been all over the news the past few days.”

No, it couldn’t be…Duncan and Gustave were connected.

“Gustave used to love younger pussy, you know?” Duncan divulged, eyeing Odd. “Like your girlfriend. I bet she has a tight snatch. I’d love to film he-”

It was like a flip had been switched inside Ulrich’s brain. The darkness he had tucked deep inside from the start of their impromptu interrogation took hold, smothering every rational thought until pure, unbridled rage was the only thing left. Duncan’s words brought the video of Julie to the forefront of his mind, but instead of the young, mousey, sixteen-year-old on the bed, it was Elisabeth. 

Ulrich never wanted to hear the prosecutor’s name out of Duncan’s filthy mouth, again. 

Three sets of hands tugged on his shirt and arms as he slammed Duncan against the bars again and again. The action barely fazed the neo-nazi, and once Ulrich let go, he slumped to the bottom of the cell in fits of crazed laughter.

“Ulrich, what the hell!?” Odd and Mathias dragged Ulrich away and pinned him to the wall as his thrashing and breathing slowed, the room around them coming back into focus. What the hell, indeed. He flexed his hands to rid them of their stiffness before sliding down the wall and into a seated position. At eye level with Duncan, he could see the claw marks on his neck from where the detective had gripped him. 

“Did that make you feel like a man, detective?” Duncan grinned, his mouth once again pressed to the bars of his cage. “Did it feel good to let go?”

Odd muttered something about calling the city prosecutor, turning tail and disappearing hastily through the station doors.

A curious and unsettled look had adorned William’s face as he watched Ulrich. “I really hope Delmas can handle this one.”

It was the first time Ulrich had heard the officer comment so candidly on a case, and the shock caused the detective’s head to whip upwards to face him. William’s unreadable eyes remained locked onto Duncan’s prone form, the latter having finally worn himself down to hiccups and gasps of breath that vaguely resembled an amused guffaw.

“Don’t worry,” Ulrich chided, his voice tinged with disbelief and indignation, “she can.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Have you ever fired a gun before?”

Yumi looked up at the detective and took his outstretched hand, groaning at her own stiff muscles as he pulled her up. The pair had spent the past two hours sparring, neither wanting to take the other down until the reporter had landed a solid hit to Ulrich’s gut. After that, they were lucky to land a hit on the other at all.

The precinct’s gym was nicer than she had expected, with a wide range of exercise equipment, a spacious training mat, and two large locker rooms. Ulrich had hidden an embarrassed expression as he explained the pristine condition of the women’s locker room, but Yumi was anything but surprised to hear that Boulogne-Billancourt had no female officers to break it in.

“I can’t say I have, detective.” She rested her hands on her thighs to catch her breath before drawing herself to her full height. “I’m a quick learner, though.”

There was that flirtatious sexual energy again. She had been channeling it all day, a surprise even to herself. It had been at least a year - one devoted to nothing but her work - since she’d even thought about going on a date. The entire afternoon had been physical contact and pained grunts; sparring, of course, but Yumi was far from naive to the fire in Ulrich’s eyes. In the heat of a fight, the reserved demeanour he carried in the station, the mask of solemnity he had at the café and during her police interview, fell away to reveal something red-hot and dangerous. His body ran warm, and she found herself wanting to get closer to the source. 

_‘Sexual attraction or not, this is to get more information for Kadic.’_ She reminded herself. _‘You’re not here for an adult playdate.’_

It would be a lie to say the flirting _wasn’t_ working. In the course of their match, Ulrich had recounted the events of his morning and divulged information about Chardin that she would never have been privy to otherwise. Ulrich’s candor had clearly surprised even himself, but every time he would clam up in realization, she would throw another flirtatious quip his way to loosen his jaw. The title of shrew couldn’t be more fitting, and she told herself her moral compass was skewed for all the right reasons...while trying to ignore the guilt-ridden ulcer that was budding at the base of her stomach. 

Ulrich smiled and motioned for her to follow him, snatching up his bag on the way through another door. She had seen a gun range before on television, some gritty crime show that her life was now seemingly emulating, but had never set foot inside of one. The room was as cold and clinical as she had expected, and her lightweight tennis shoes echoed a _pitter-patter_ throughout the space. The floor was a two-toned marble that ran half the length of the room, stopping at the end of each shooting booth. A rubbery material covered the rest of the shooting lanes. Each booth was separated by metal sheeting, forming a half box with a table, and targets in the silhouettes of bulky men loomed at the end of each lane. They made Yumi think of intimidating shadows ready for a gun fight. 

“It’s sort of jarring, but don’t be too scared.” Ulrich said, eyeing her open-mouthed look of concern.

The reporter clacked her teeth together in embarrassment. “It’s those targets. How do you excuse them being shaped like people?”

Ulrich’s eyes drifted over to the papers at the end of each lane, lost in thought.

“I’m a glorified police officer. What else would I be shooting at?”

The vitriol in his statement wasn’t meant for her, but the hatred in his tone threatened to bowl her over nonetheless. His lips were set in a thin, grim, line and his eyes were hard as he dropped his bag on the floor, scooping a pistol and box of ammunition out of it. She watched as he deftly checked over the weapon, his hands working quickly with the experience of doing it a thousand times. 

“I don’t have to give you the ‘guns aren’t toys’ talk, do I?” His eyes flicked sideways at her before returning to the task in his hands

“I’m older than you, stop being so condescending.”

The detective placed the gun on the table in front of them and handed her a pair of earmuffs. “This is a semi-automatic pistol, it’s the standard issue firearm for officers in the French police force. Or, at least, officers who carry.”

He pointed to the box of ammunition. “This is nine millimeter ammo. Do you know how a semi-automatic works?”

Yumi shook her head.

“As soon as you fire, it uses recoil to eject the empty bullet casing and load a fresh cartridge. All you have to do is keep pulling the trigger until the magazine is empty.”

“Magazine?”

“The part that holds the ammunition.” He smiled at the moderately confused look on her face, and she got the feeling that he was enjoying dumbing the process down. “Watch.”

Ulrich loaded the ammunition into the gun and took a half step back. His body automatically shifted into what the reporter assumed was the proper shooting stance before turning his head to look at her. “You’re going to want to put those earmuffs on now.” 

When she had done as she was told, Ulrich began firing.

God, it was so much louder than she had expected. How did the officers on television manage to fire without ear protection?

_‘Because they don’t use real guns, imbécile.’_

All five shots landed true to their target, forming a dense cluster in the paper figure’s sternum. The detective stood frozen, his eyes searching over the bullet hole patterns, then flicked on the safety and unloaded the gun. Yumi’s discomfort must have been etched on her face, as Ulrich's disposition shifted from calculatingly passive to concerned as he set the gun down on the table. 

“You don’t have to shoot the gun, Yumi.” 

Yumi knew he meant it, too. He had no expectations of the woman, no idealized version of her in his head. If she didn’t want to fire the gun, he wasn’t going to pressure her to fire the gun. The problem was that she _really_ wanted to learn how to fire the gun...

The only thing stopping her was her unease at the firearm’s sheer life-taking power. A mental image of her grandmother’s body in its casket, followed by Maïtena’s severed head, made her stomach turn. She was starting to think she was too hung up on death for her own good.

“You learned all of this at the police academy, then?” She asked, stalling. Her eyes wandered back to the firearm behind him. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Ulrich stepped in her line of vision, blocking out the gun. Whether he had noticed her looks or not, she was grateful. “I already knew a lot of it. My dad was in the Bundeswehr in Germany.”

A military brat. Now that was interesting. His whole demeanour was beginning to make much more sense with the small revelation of his past: the discipline, the softness hidden away behind stoicism and rule-following, and not to mention the painfully obvious hero-complex he seemed to have going on.

Yumi offered a cocky smile despite her trepidation. “You just get more and more interesting, Stern, you know that?”

The pink that tinged the man’s cheeks only served to widen her smile. 

“Okay, show me how to fire the gun. I should learn, maybe it’ll come in handy someday.”

“Are you sure?” He asked.

If her insistent nod hadn’t convinced him, he refused to show it. Instead, he stepped to the side and motioned for her to take his place at the table. “It’s unloaded. You can pick it up and get a feel for it.”

Yumi followed his instructions, trying to ignore the anxiety that flooded her extremities at holding the weapon. It wasn’t just louder than she expected, but heavier too; yet another thing television couldn’t get across.

“Alright, good. Now load the magazine into the gun.”

Much to Ulrich’s enjoyment, the reporter fumbled but eventually managed to load the gun. His snort of amusement earned him an annoyed glare. 

“No, no, it’s fine. You did fine.” The detective allowed one last chuckle before sobering. “Do you remember how I stood?”

The woman balked apologetically at him. She had been so distracted by how intensely he held the gun and eyed his target that she hadn’t noticed his foot placement. Rather than chastising her, he pointed to her right leg. 

“You’re right handed, yes? That one should be about a foot behind the other and turned slightly to the side - no, facing outwards. Left foot faces forward.”

When her feet were in place, he continued. 

“Alright, your right arm is going to be straight. Don’t put the finger on the trigger yet, just off to the side- yes, like that. Your left arm is bracing it, so wrap your hand around the...no, not like that, not at the bottom...up a bit more...no, a bit more, Yumi-”

“Show me.” She interrupted him, her eyes facing forwards. The words had come out of her mouth before she could mull them over, and there was a second of silence in which she began to regret her demand while Ulrich opened and closed his mouth like a confused fish.

“What..?”

Tamiya had once said that _“the closer a person was to you, the easier they were to manipulate”_ ; surely physical closeness was included in that? She hoped that with him behind her he wouldn’t be able to see her blush.

“For fuck’s sake, Stern. Stand behind me and move my arms where they’re supposed to go.”

To his credit, Ulrich was still playing the awkward virgin, with his cheeks beet red and eyes wide with uncertainty. “I don’t...is that...okay?”

Yumi nodded her consent and the detective shuffled behind her. In the tight space, Ulrich’s chest was forced close to her back. She could feel him sucking in his stomach and holding his breath to keep his stomach from brushing against her. His mute chivalry was amusing, and refreshing, to Yumi. He really wasn’t like any flic she’d ever met.

“Okay,” his breath on the back of her head raised goosebumps down her neck, “I’m going to flick the safety off. That means the range is live, so don’t fire until you’re ready.”

It was uncomfortable, and not very sexy, with both of them crammed in the small booth. She could tell Ulrich was out of his element, and in all honesty, so was she. It had been a long time since she’d put herself out there, but something told her this wasn’t the way to do it. In fact, what was she doing? Trying to seduce this sweet, unassuming man into giving her information for her newspaper article about corrupt and loafing flics?

_‘Man up, Ishiyama. This is just another angle, nice guy involved or not.’_

She took a tighter grip on the gun and her emotions, once again regaining the reigns of the situation. Maybe death wasn’t her problem, maybe it was control. 

“I’m ready.” The reporter announced, and Ulrich nodded.

“The gun is going to kickback when you pull the trigger. Don’t get scared by it, it won’t hurt you.”

_BANG!_

He was right, it didn’t hurt, but she felt herself jump at the recoil nonetheless. The sheer power of the shot reverberated through her arms and chest, leaving them tingly down through her fingers. She vaguely wondered if that was normal. Logically, the time between pulling the trigger, the bullet leaving the gun, and the final echoing crack of gunfire was mere seconds, but the moment seemed to stretch on forever as the silence once again shrouded them.

When Yumi made no move to shoot again, Ulrich flicked off the safety.

His arms were still braced around her, fingers over hers as they held the gun. She turned her head to the side to look up at him at the same time he leaned forward to see her reaction, causing the corner of his lips to brush against her temple. 

“Are you alright? It can be scary at first. I was ten the first time I-”

If she was going to go full honeypot for her article, she mused, she might as well go all the way. Later on, she could always chalk it up to the heat of the moment, a lapse in her judgment, a fluke. The position was awkward, his slight height advantage forcing her up on the balls of her feet, and his lips were dryer than she expected. 

For one fleeting moment it felt like he was going to kiss back as his lips pursed against hers, and her stomach flipped uncomfortably at the thought. The gentle _tap_ of the gun being set onto the table startled the woman back to her senses and caused Ulrich to quickly jerk away. She turned to face the target at the end of the range, busying herself by desperately trying to find the bullet hole her shot had created. The silence that stretched on, deep and unbroken save for the soft sounds of their breathing and the air conditioning unit on the wall, frayed Yumi’s nerves and sent an embarrassed blush creeping up the back of her neck. 

_‘Say something, say something, say something, if you don’t say something I will!’_ She steeled herself and prepared to face him. 

“It’s there.” His shoulder brushed up against hers as he made the first move, shuffling in beside her. 

Yumi followed his finger down the shooting lane to the target, her eyes searching the paper figure until she found one lone bullet hole. A straggler, nearly a foot from the rest, had pierced just below the left lung.

“You hit the target. Not many people do that on their first try.”

“You basically did half of the work, though.” She answered back.

“Everyone needs help on their first try.” His hands moved automatically, unloading the gun and packing the weapon and ammunition back into the bag. “Would you, ah, would you want to get dinner with me, tonight?”

Well, she hadn’t expected _that_. A few more hours with the man meant a few more opportunities at information, a goldmine, really. Granted, she’d have to cancel dinner with Tamiya, but she knew her editor would understand. The job came first for both of them.

The reporter schooled her shock and plastered a cocky smirk onto her face before turning towards him. Not even his lost little puppy eyes would dampen her excitement at the prospect of a chance like this. 

With more temerity than she truly felt, she nodded her assent. “I’d like that. Just let me get changed, first.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In hindsight, Aelita mused, she should have known the wig on her head would be onerous to keep on. The flimsy faux hair slid farther back with each step, the bangs inching higher on her forehead and revealing her bright pink fringe. The makeup she had slathered on before leaving the apartment was somehow worse, giving her more the appearance of a cheap whore than a hooker vigilante. She really hoped she didn’t look as much of a clown as she thought she did.

The whole reason behind her new fashion choice was dim-witted, born of a Club Lyoko induced frustration at the predicament she had found herself in. 

_“Ça va, Princess?” Milly asked, grabbing a tray and hip-checking the pink-haired woman._

_Princess. The dancer name she had chosen when she started working at Club Lyoko. She had agonized for days over what she wanted the other dancers and patrons to call her, going so far as to make a pros and cons list for each name she came up with. In the end, Princess had won out. It was short, sweet, and easy to remember._

_At the time, Maïtena had suggested Angel as a possible pseudonym, but Aelita had quickly and ruthlessly struck that idea down. Using the same nickname at home and work defeated the safety of it, and it reminded her too much of Anthea, anyways._

She doubted her mother would be happy about the nickname Princess, either.

_A clatter behind the bar turned both of the dancer’s heads. Laura had dropped a tray on the floor, the contents spilling out in a frenzy of expensive glass and even more expensive alcohol._

_“Seriously, Laura?” Milly chastised, dropping to the floor to help the woman clean up. “This is the second time tonight you’ve broken something, what is your deal?”_

_The blonde looked more frazzled than usual. Her hair, typically pulled up in a tight bun, was frizzy and unkempt, falling down her back in messy tangles. She had dark bags under her eyes, and although Milly was right in front of her, the thousand-yard-stare she was giving several passing patrons suggested that the bartender hadn’t heard her at all._

_“Laura?” Aelita tried to get her attention, again._

_The pair finished collecting the broken shards while Milly mopped up the discarded liquid._

_“I’m fine.” Laura announced, tugging on the collar of her turtleneck as though it were stifling her. The outfit seemed like a stupid decision to Aelita. The spotlights and horde of patrons provided enough heat to turn a meat freezer into a sauna, and the blonde had been working there long enough to know the climate of the building. So why had she made the silly mistake of donning something made of such thick, warm, material? A sheen of sweat covered Laura’s skin, becoming more visible as the pulsating lights passed over them._

_The blonde filled another tray with new drinks and slid it towards Aelita. “Can you take these to table four, please?”_

_“Do I have to? My shift’s over.”_

_It was supposed to be a joke, albeit a whiny one. Laura knew Aelita would take the tray regardless of her exhaustion. She was dependable, always willing to help out where she was needed. But the blonde seemed to be on her last thread of patience, and instead of quipping back, she smacked the tray onto the counter._

_“Ael- Princess! Why can’t you just do as you’re told!?”_

The memory of Laura’s question gave the pink-haired woman pause. It was a phrase she’d heard far too many times in her short, twenty-six years; intimately acquainted, in fact. But memory was a fickle thing, and perhaps it wasn’t the number of times she had heard the statement, but the intensity of the events it had been used in. There were distinct moments in her life where she had made the wrong choice, misstepped in a place she wasn’t supposed to: a child running into the street, a teen staying out late after curfew, a young adult running away from home, and now a sex worker chastened for her insolence. 

_Aelita snatched the tray from Laura’s hands, casting her a dark look, but the blonde remained passive._

_Navigating the cramped club was a skill like no other. A large crowd was always gathered closer to the center of the room, a hundred sweat-soaked bodies writhing under strobing lights, and reds, pinks, purples, and yellows bathed their forms in saturated hues. It gave their skin an iridescent, alien, glow. Five dance podiums had been placed strategically around the club, each sporting a pole and a different dancer. At the base of the podium, clients could watch and throw their money; beady eyed men like wolves in the forest, salivating for their prey._

_“Table Four? I have your drinks.” She set down the tray in front of the three business attire clad men, then began handing out their drinks._

_“Can I get you anything else?” Aelita asked, grabbing the last drink from the tray. Underneath the table, a stray hand found its way to her tights-clad thigh, fingers running delicately along the thin fabric and up her skirt. The surprise caused her to lose her grip on the glass._

_It was like everything around them slowed; the lights, the music, even the glass falling down down down until it smacked the edge of the table and sent deep brown liquid splattering all over the man’s white shirt. The sharp sound of his palm against her cheek, followed by a radiating sting, brought the rest of the world back up to speed._

_“You little shit! You did that on purpose!”_

_Aelita couldn’t hear his words as he screamed at her. His face was contorted in the strangest way; eyes bugging out of his skull, drops of spit collecting around his lips, and a red rash creeping up his neck and jaw. She hadn’t even realized her arm had gone back, knuckles squeezing tightly into a fist as she prepared to launch a punch at the man, until a strong grip caught her wrist._

_“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Milly hissed, grabbing Aelita by the arms and pushing her away. The redhead turned back to the men, holding out her hands placatingly. “I am so sorry, she’s going through a lot right now. Please, we’ll get you a fresh round of drinks on the house.”_

_The pink-haired woman’s heart hammered against her ribs as Milly guided her back through the club and to the door of the dancers’ dressing room._

_“Are you fucking mental!? Aelita, what were you thinking!?”_

_Aelita’s lack of response deflated the woman’s angry tirade. “Go home, Aelita. Just get changed and go home.”_

_The sound of the club fell away as soon as the dressing room door clicked shut. She hated this job, and more than anything wished she’d stayed in school. She wasn’t like Maïtena, or Milly, or even Laura. She couldn’t compartmentalize the moral quandary of letting nameless men run their hands over her. Every single one of Club Lyoko’s patrons was a filthy pig, good only for the wad of cash they shoved into a dancer’s hands after they’d had their fill._

_She ran a hand over her face in exhaustion and plopped down onto a stool in front of one of the vanities. It was best not to get sucked down that rabbit hole of thought before her lonely walk home._

_That was when she noticed the vanity in front of her wasn’t hers. It was Maïtena’s._

_The entire night came crashing down on her, all at once too much for her to handle. Aelita’s chest was heavy with grief and her face crumpled as her shoulders shook with the intensity of her sobs. How could such a wonderful, caring, indomitable person be taken so brutally from the world - from Aelita’s life - as though she were nothing? As though she didn’t have a daughter, friends, and family?_

_Rage bubbled up inside her and erupted with a throat-grating scream. She pulled her fist back and slammed it into the glass of the vanity mirror in front of her, eliciting an audible crunch. It was going to hurt when her adrenaline ran out, but she didn’t care. If the pain meant an escape from the numbness of grief, she’d damn well do it again. As her rage died down, Aelita began to pick out the bits of glass from her hands, leaning closer into the light to make sure she found each shard. Her legs brushed up against an open drawer on the bottom half of the vanity._

_Maïtena liked - insisted on, even - altering her appearance for work. Heavy makeup and form-fitting clothing ensured that she wouldn’t be recognized in her daily life for what she really was. After all, it wasn’t just herself she was looking out for, it was Nathalie, too. The pièce-de-résistance of her ruse had to be the four wigs she alternated between: a black one, a red one, a bleached-blonde one, and a cotton candy blue one. Aelita reached in and pulled the black wig out. It had wedged itself in between the drawer and the seam of the vanity, keeping it from closing all the way._

_With agonizing slowness and a wince at the bits of glass still in her hand, she patted down her own dyed strands and pulled on the wig. It fell to her jawline, longer than her own hair, and made her already pale skin and emerald green eyes luminescent in contrast._

_She felt like a completely different person._

_Maybe, she pondered, that was why Maïtena liked it. She could pretend, even for a bit, that she wasn’t a cheap, dime-a-dozen, whore working the red light district of Paris; targeted by men who wouldn’t take no for an answer._

_Puzzle pieces fell into place in her mind, switching on the proverbial lightbulb above her head. Maïtena had always protected her from the horrors of this life, a favor she hadn’t been able to return...but she could always pay it forward. A wig, some makeup, and a weapon were all she needed to prowl the streets. She would be a guardian angel protecting Boulogne-Billancourt’s sex workers._

The Boulevard had been relatively quiet; couples arm in arm stealing sultry glances at each other, families chattering on while mothers chastised their children for getting too close to the street, and the occasional dirty vagrant stumbling down an alley to urinate on a cluster of cardboard boxes. Their innocence to Milly’s stolen butcher knife in the inside pocket of Aelita’s jacket was enough to make anyone despondent, and the pink-haired woman eyed them nervously as she traipsed past. 

Loitering just long enough to confirm their safety, Aelita had watched a handful of working women (and two men) as they leaned into car windows or ducked into alleys with clients. In disguise, she had received distrustful glances from the sex workers and intimidating snarls from their Johns. It was worth it if she could ensure that they’d get home safely tonight.

There was something powerful about prowling the streets with a knife, anonymous to the people around her.

“I said get off, connard! I said no!” 

At the sound of the voice, Aelita pressed herself flat against the brick wall leading to the mouth of the alley. It could’ve been a fluke, perhaps a couple playing a game, but she listened intently nonetheless.

“I said get OFF!” The solid thud of someone being pushed against something hard, followed by a woman’s sob and a man’s gruff voice chastising her, followed the shriek.

This was it, this was what she had been waiting nearly all night for. Her hand slipped inside her jacket and wrapped around the handle of the knife in preparation. She steeled herself once more, glancing around for any onlookers, before ducking into the alley to follow the voices. 

“Stop squirming, you little bitch!” The man snarled.

The _click-clack_ of her heels approaching turned both of the figures’ heads. A deep breath, a tighter grip on the blade. “Is this man bothering you, mademoiselle?”

_‘Merde, your voice. Don’t let him hear you shaking.’_

“Who the fuck are you?” The man asked, turning his attention towards Aelita. 

She tried not to wither under his angry gaze. “I suggest, uh, I suggest you step away from her.”

For a moment she wasn’t sure if the man had heard her, a dumbfounded look on his face. Then, he broke into laughter. 

“And I suppose you’re going to make me, ah? What are you, five-feet-tall?”

He lunged towards Aelita, the prostitute he was harassing momentarily forgotten, and snatched the collar of her jacket. The other woman raced past and out of the alley, throwing an apologetic look over her shoulder. 

_“As much as people like to criticize the sex work community, we really are a tight knit family…”_

So much for that. 

For the second time in a fortnight, she found herself at the mercy of a man she didn’t know, the back of his hand coming up to strike her cheek and snapping her head to the side. She landed a solid punch to his jaw in return, but was quickly pinned against the brick wall so hard she could feel the lumpy, dried clay biting into her back through her shirt and heavy coat.

“Whores like you need to learn their place!” His breath reeked of whiskey, drops of spittle spattering on her cheeks and nose as he hissed at her.

_“Aelita...Aelita, please stop crying, mon ange.”_

_She flinched as Maïtena began to rub comforting circles on her shoulder, quickly shrugging away and scrambling farther up the bed. After the night she’d had, she wasn’t sure that she wanted anyone to touch her ever again._

_“I tried to tell you what working at the club was like, what this life is like, Aelita.” Maïtena’s voice was pained. “I tried to prepare you.”_

This time she was prepared, and she wasn’t ever going to allow someone’s hands on her like that again.

His face came down to hers just as his hands found her breasts, and she tore the kitchen knife from her jacket pocket. What little space between them instantly widened as the knife punctured his right shoulder, and an audible _sqwelp_ could be heard as she pushed the knife in deep. It took both hands to puncture through the skin, the resistance of his muscle pressing back against her like an overcooked cutlet of beef.

“GAHHHH! Ahhh! MERDE!” He stumbled backwards a few steps, releasing Aelita from the wall, and spluttered expletives in her direction. It was almost comical the way the veins in his forehead and neck throbbed as he screamed, causing more blood to well up around the wound as he strained his body. 

_‘You just...oh god…’_

Aelita felt the ground beneath her sway dangerously, her feet fumbling to find footing as she backed towards the mouth of the alley. The feeling of flesh giving way, parting under the force of her blade, made her stomach lurch painfully. Before she could stop it, bile came up her throat and spilled over her blood stained hands. 

The pink-haired woman turned on her heel and staggered away from the alley. The street had filled up considerably in the moments after stabbing her assailant, and each step jostled her in between the passersby. Every few moments she chanced a petrified glance backwards, her breath coming out in harsh, panicked, pants. 

“Hey, watch where you-ugh!”

At the last second, Aelita turned her head in the direction of her path. Unbeknownst to her, a lanky, shaggy haired, man had been walking towards her, his nose stuck to the screen of his cell phone. Her shoulder caught his sternum, his feet caught her shins, and they both entered a brief freefall towards the concrete sidewalk. 

Despite his lankiness, the man’s chest cushioned her fall well. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry…” Aelita muttered, pushing away from the man. 

He sat up. “Jesus Christ, is that blood?”

Oh god. The blood from her assailant was covering her hands, and the man under her now had two dark red blood stains on his very _very_ white shirt. Aelita jumped up from her position on the ground and tucked her hands inside her jacket. Several passersby had stopped, their voices low as they eyed the blood-covered pair.

“It’s...it’s not what you think, I-” Actually, she mused, it was exactly what they were thinking.

The man got to his feet, and she quickly realized just how much taller than her he was. His height forced her to look upwards into two blue eyes hidden behind a pair of thick glasses and a fringe of blond hair.

“It’s okay.” The man placated the onlookers. “It’s alright, she’s just...injured. I’ll take her to an Accident and Emergency.”

He was lying through his teeth to help her, but for what reason she couldn’t tell. 

From her place down the sidewalk, Aelita could just make out a single trail of blood heading in the opposite direction of them, to the right of the alley. The small crowd had dispersed quickly, leaving Aelita alone with the newcomer.

“Ça va, mademoiselle?” He asked. 

Was she alright? Her heart hadn’t slowed down from the moment she’d ducked into the dark alley, and she could feel beads of nervous sweat on the back of her neck and the center of her palms. The backwards glance of the woman she’d saved played over and over in her mind. She’d gambled her own life for someone else’s, and it didn’t feel so powerful anymore. Once again, her hands had drops of blood on them; how hadn’t she gone more than half a week without getting blood on herself?

“What’s your name?”

The question startled Aelita, and she realized the man was still standing in front of her expectantly.

“It’s...Talia.”

“My name’s Jeremie. Can I walk you home, Talia?”

When she stalled, he held up his hands. “I work for the police, I’m a forensic technician.”

“That means nothing, even police murder people.”

He quickly conceded to her point. “That’s fair, but that man won’t be too happy when he gets the knife out of his shoulder, and I don’t think I can call myself a civil servant if I don’t make sure you at least get halfway home.”

So he _had_ seen her attacker leave the alley. That’s why he had covered for her in front of the passersby.

All she wanted to do was shower and lay down, maybe even burn the wig on her head that had been driving her insane all night. However, Jeremie was right. If she walked home alone now, without a weapon, she risked putting herself in even more danger. It wasn’t just the man from earlier she needed to worry about, Maïtena’s killer was still out there as well.

She nodded slowly and the pair started towards Aelita’s apartment. Any hopes of a quiet walk home were quickly dashed as soon as the technician opened his mouth. 

“Can I ask what you were doing in that alley?”

“I don’t really see how that’s any of your business.” She shot back.

He fell silent, but wasn’t easily chastened. 

“Talia isn’t your real name, is it?”

With a huff, she halted in her tracks and glared at him. Her fists were curled into tight balls of frustration, and the height difference between them only served to make her rage look comical. “What part of ‘not your business’ didn’t you get? You’re as stubborn as a fool!”

“It’s ‘as stubborn as a mule’.”

Exhaustion washed over her at the man’s nonchalant correction.

 _‘He did just see you run down the sidewalk, covered in blood, followed by a stab victim.’_ He was inquisitive, she couldn’t blame him for that.

“You’re right.” He conceded, interrupting her train of thought. “It isn’t my business, I’m sorry.”

Aelita didn’t think he looked very sorry, but they continued on regardless. It was simultaneously pleasant and disconcerting to have someone next to her; usually she walked alone, or perhaps with Milly. Walking next to a man who wasn’t paying for her time was a brand new feeling that she didn’t want to get her hopes up for. 

“This is me.” She announced, motioning vaguely to a row of buildings in front of them. 

Jeremie acquiesced, realizing that she didn’t want to give him her exact address. With a quick wave he turned back the way they had come. Aelita felt a rush of guilt at how far he’d gone out of his way - a full three-sixty in his walk to help her get home.

“Wait...I, ah, thank you. For walking me home.”

It took a moment for the man to respond, his eyes never leaving the pavement under his feet.

“Not everyone in this city is bad, Talia. Sometimes people want to help just because they can.”

For once, Aelita didn’t know what to say. All of the anger she’d been living in for the past two weeks felt misplaced and misguided. Nothing could bring Maïtena back, least of all a vigilante nightwatch that ended in kitchen knives puncturing men’s shoulders. It was a disgrace to the woman’s memory for Aelita to put herself back in the danger Maïtena had tried so hard to protect her from. She really hated it when other people were right. 

When she glanced back up, the stranger was gone. She didn’t have a response to his wisdom, anyways.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every third flicker of the bathroom light elicited a sharp buzzing, a sudden whine as the filaments sparked inside their glass chambers. He’d have to replace it soon if he wanted a steady light source, one that didn’t leave him staring into a dark mirror with only the street lights illuminating his face through the window.

But that would mean a trip to the store. A deviation from his path. The thought was simply nauseating. 

The man leaned forward with his hands on the edge of the sink, staring blankly into the glass in front of him. A gentle, steady, _drip drip drip_ sounded as droplets of blood stained the porcelain basin, falling away from the tip of the razor blade in his right hand. It was near perfection the way the offending blemishes left pink trails in their rush to the drain, and he liked the permanence of blood red against pure white. 

His shoulder muscles flexed and shifted as he brought his arm up over his head and behind him, pressing the blade into his back as hard as he could. The skin parted in the blade’s wake, blood bubbling up inside the laceration and spilling over soon after. The feeling of warm and wet dripping down his back made him shudder. 

He’d been doing this for weeks, and ever so slowly a pattern was beginning to emerge.

There had to be nearly a hundred lines by now, varying in depth from his initial trepidation at the act to deeper, more confident strokes; each one a different length. A dense cluster of cuts formed a meticulous circle in the middle of his back, criss-crossing his spine. Two more sets formed two concentric rings around the circle, a few straggling slices marring his flanks. The lower three lines were the easiest part of the design. But the top one, the one that extended towards his neck, was the one that needed the most work. 

The razor blade clattered into the sink, and the man popped his neck, back and forth, before once again reaching up, this time with his bare hand. He felt along the back of his neck until he found the laceration, then pressed his fingers into it as deeply as he could.

“Ah…” 

To feel pain, to feel anything at all, was such divine pleasure. His eyes screwed tightly at the feeling and he bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from crying out again.

With the pads of his fingers coated evenly in blood, he pulled them away from his back and looked once more to the mirror before him. Several images, printed on copy paper and taped to the glass surface, stared back. Gustave Chardin had been dispatched. He marked a red ‘X’ over the man’s face with his pointer finger and his eyes moved down the line. Another man, balding on top with beady little eyes and a rat-like visage...Peter Duncan. 

That’s who had to be next.

The man at the sink licked the remaining blood off of his fingers, his eyes never leaving the collection of faces in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no...update? This chapter took a lot out of me. I decided I needed to just get it out here...chapter ten might take a while to be posted, I'm feeling a bit of that awful burn out.
> 
> I just had surgery on my hand and my last semester of uni has started! If my updates get a little sparser, you know why. 
> 
> As always, thank you to EpsilonTarantula on AO3 and FF.net for their help in beta reading, CJ for their help with my grammar, and a lovely shout out to Makalyta for their fantastic fan art of this fanfic and their willingness to listen to my ramblings about it.


	10. Madame Procureure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> 1\. Mentions of Domestic Violence  
> 2\. Mentions of underage sex work  
> 3\. Mentions of tobacco use  
> 4\. Toxic/Emotionally Abusive family life  
> 5\. Anti-semitism/anti-semitic slurs  
> 6\. Mentions of PTSD and the mocking/vilifying of it 
> 
> Maitre: Honorific used for lawyers in France and several other European countries  
> Juge: French for Judge, I promise I didn't spell it wrong

By her sixth year of primary school, Elisabeth had developed an astute awareness of the dichotomy between men and women. It wasn’t just the anatomy, the flowery drawn pictures in ‘Girl’s Guide to Your Body’ books that Marion had insisted on showing her. It was the mental, emotional, and intellectual, too. Women were meant to be homemakers, soft and silent as they stood doting on their breadwinner husbands. Men were somehow brawn and brains incarnate, monopolizing every career and passing their infinite wisdom to the next generation of microaggressive halfwits. 

If growing up in the Delmas villa had taught her anything, however, it was that the expectations of gender obligations were horse shit. Marion was smart, calculatingly so. In a world of wolves she kept her cards close to her chest, secret and sacred, playing the right one at the right time. Jean Pierre, on the other hand, bulldozed his way through every blunder with all the grace and intellect of an elephant. He solved problems with a hammer, not a screwdriver. After all, why use a delicate touch when smashing the problem to bits made quick work of it?

If her father’s infidelity was the mallet, then the falter in Marion’s usually confident demeanour was the shattered windowpane. That left Elisabeth’s lifelong rebellious streak to be the fallout.

That same year she developed her first crush; an infatuation with a student named Emmanuel Maillard. There was nothing particularly exceptional about the boy, besides his penchant for breaking the uniform rules and his strict selective mutism that made even the teachers uncomfortable, but Elisabeth idolized his adolescent mutiny regardless. 

A week of stalker-like observation revealed that the boy had an affinity for chess. Each day he would saunter into the classroom with a board tucked under his arm and a bag of chess pieces clutched tightly in his fist, stowing them safely under his chair until lunch time. Instead of eating, Emmanuel would line the delicate pieces on each side of the board and move them one-by-one; calculate, capture, repeat. As unnerving as the boy was, the girl found herself fascinated by the game he played. 

It was smart, and Elisabeth liked smart. 

She could still remember bursting into her father’s office, interrupting whatever asinine argument he and Marion were in the middle of, to announce that she desperately wanted - needed - her very own chess set. The look of shock on Jean Pierre’s face and the bemusement on Marion’s only spurred her on, and soon she was researching everything she could about the age-old game to prove the seriousness of her new endeavour. 

_“Maman, did you know that chess came from the...the Gupta Empire, and was then learned by the Persians and then the Arabs?”_

_“I didn’t, mon ange. How fascinating.” They were an hour into Elisabeth’s newest rash of chess knowledge and thirty minutes into the busy waiting room of the doctor’s office. Marion sat patiently next to her daughter while Jean Pierre fidgeted restlessly on his wife’s other side._

_“And did you know that in 1254 the King of France banned chess?” The girl asked again. Her thin legs swung back and forth, the toes of her shoes scraping the floor as they did. “Obviously not for long, though. Otherwise it would still be banned today. And did you know that-”_

_In a sudden burst of annoyance, Jean Pierre leaned over Marion and snatched the chess book out of his daughter’s hands before stowing it carelessly under his leg._

_“Hey! You’re going to bend the pages!”_

_Marion shushed the girl, shooting her husband a dark look. “It’s alright, chérie, let’s just sit quietly for now.”_

The chess set she had received was beautiful. Each piece had been handcrafted, half of the set frosted glass and the other half clear like crystal, all atop a mahogany, red, board. Like everything else in the Delmas villa, it came with a staggering price tag, and Jean Pierre made it very clear that permission was required if she wanted to play with it. Each day after school she would rush home to finish her homework and help Marion cook, all the while bouncing on the balls of her feet and counting down the minutes until she could pester her father into retrieving it from his bureau.

_“I don’t know why she’s so fascinated by that silly game.”_

_Elisabeth padded across the hallway and stationed herself just out of sight of her parents’ bedroom door, listening intently. Their conversations made her nervous. The loud, shouty ones felt like they could shatter windows or break down walls, but the quiet ones were somehow worse; viperous and calculating._

_“I think it’s nice.” It was Marion’s voice this time. “She has a hobby. It’s teaching her critical thinking and planning.”_

_“It’s teaching her how to be a smartass and a snake.”_

_There was a long silence after Jean Pierre’s gruff words, pregnant with years of married tension._

_“How fortunate, then, hmm?” Marion asked. The lights clicked off and Elisabeth could hear the rustle of sheets as her mother climbed into bed. “Like mother, like daughter.”_

Halfway through the year, Emmanuel’s parents were killed in a horrific car crash. A drunken driver had swerved into oncoming traffic, striking the couple head on and killing them instantly. Social Services had quickly ushered the boy away from Boulogne-Billancourt and into the capable hands of his mother’s relatives, leaving Elisabeth more alone than she’d ever felt. Without a muse, the chess set wandered from her father’s bureau to a hallway closet, forgotten and destined to collect dust forever.

It wasn’t until her first month at Lycée Lakanal that Elisabeth remembered the game. Marion’s second psychiatric hospitalization had spurred a particularly injurious argument between father and daughter, leaving little to the imagination of the man’s opinion of the young woman. Words usually kept confined within the walls he shared with Marion came spilling out, ‘smartass’ and ‘snake’ carelessly conflated with ‘disrespectful bitch’. The man had apologized, of course, after a quick refuge to the balcony for a cigarette (or two). But Elisabeth was long past forgiving him.

Their argument, however, followed a pattern that tugged familiarly at the back of Elisabeth’s mind long after her father had left the room. It was like they were circling each other, studying every move and calculating their next verbal blows.

It was like a game of strategy. It was a lot like chess. 

Entering the hallway closet had been a painful trip down memory lane. Old coats hung moth eaten and threadbare, their previous warmth merely an echo of holidays to Berlin or trips to Jean Pierre’s family in Lyon. Strewn amongst knick knacks and sentimental possessions, bags of school uniforms that Elisabeth had long grown out of and toys she had long lost interest in hid the wooden floor from view. Finding the chess board had been easy enough. The ornate, distinctive, boxing was still recognizable on the shelf, despite the heavy layers of dust.

_“You know, prosecution is like chess sometimes.”_

_Saturdays were the only days Marion was allowed visitors in the psychiatric ward. She looked tired - exhausted, even - and Elisabeth felt a pang of sadness at the deadened, Zyprexa-induced gaze in her mother’s eyes._

_“Ah bon? How so, maman?” Elisabeth asked. If anything, she could at least humor her mother into some semblance of normalcy._

_“You start on an even playing field, the prosecutor and the lawyer knowing the rules and having all the information laid out for them. You just have to anticipate what the other’s next move will be and try to stop it. If your interpretation of the evidence is more convincing than theirs...checkmate.”_

“Your witnesses are late, Delmas.” The sharp voice of Peter Duncan’s defense attorney startled the prosecutor from unpleasant memories, bringing the Boulogne-Billancourt criminal courtroom back into focus. Images of glass pieces sliding along red and black checkered squares gave way to marble floors and deep russet accents, the Delmas family feud momentarily inching back into the shadows. 

Elisabeth cast the woman and her client a long suffering glance from across the aisle.

The status of city prosecutor wasn’t without its competition, from lawyers, judges, and police officers alike, but there was an especially unspoken rivalry amongst the women of Boulogne-Billancourt’s legal line-up. One that existed in the form of Magali de Vasseur.

Magali was just shy of one year post-law school, but had already begun making waves with an impressive acquittal to conviction ratio. She was good, Elisabeth would admit that much, but what she had in fresh-faced talent she lacked in experience. With a former city prosecutor for a mother and a police captain for a father, Elisabeth had spent more time in precincts and judge’s chambers than she had in her own home. It was an advantage she was happy to exploit.

“Juge Fumet isn’t even here yet, Magali. My witnesses still have another fifteen minutes.” Elisabeth waited for the defense attorney to turn back to her client before typing out a hasty message to Ulrich.

**[Elisabeth D. 8:45 AM] Your partner is late !!!**

**[Ulrich S. 8:45 AM] He left the precinct fifteen minutes ago. Be nice, he didn’t sleep well.**

**[Elisabeth D. 8:46 AM] Does he ever ??**

The prosecutor let out an exasperated sigh. She’d been completely out of sorts the last twenty-four hours, the news that Odd would be testifying, instead of Ulrich, scattering her thoughts beyond decipherability. It only made sense that the defense would subpoena Odd. After all, he had been present for the interrogation before its dramatic - and violent - close. But after her less-than-graceful breakdown, and his less-than-chivalrous eye contact, the thought of facing the detective made the woman nauseous.

The bruises around her throat had all but disappeared, looking more like shadows than fingermarks, but the memory of being pinned to the wall and threatened was still fresh. 

The memory of Odd’s terrifying rage, followed by his gentle hand cupping her jaw, was fresher.

No, no, _no_. For the umpteenth time in the past two days, she shook the image from her head as quickly as it had come. There was no way she was having... _thoughts_ about that man. Odd was vain, cocky, immature, and an absolute womanizer when he wasn’t in the grip of a PTSD induced depression. Not to mention that the pair had a very nuanced relationship filled with mutual contempt that stemmed from an ill-fated competition to be Ulrich’s best friend. 

“You sound so sure.” Magali drawled on, once again bringing the prosecutor’s attention back to the courtroom. “Meanwhile, my client is ready and waiting.”

**[Elisabeth D. 8:48 AM] YOU would’ve been on time!**

It was a low blow, and she knew it. But Magali was right: even Duncan had shown up on time. 

**[Ulrich S. 8:49 AM] Please don't say that to Odd. :)**

Footsteps, hurried at first but slowing as they reached the courtroom door, drew both the prosecutor and defense attorney’s eyes towards the back of the room. As the wooden door swung inwards, and Odd’s gaunt face peeked around the corner, Elisabeth bit back a sigh of relief. Her witnesses had made it with ten minutes to spare.

The relief was short lived, however, as the blond detective stepped through the threshold of the room. Compared to the prosecutor, defense attorney, and defendant before him, Odd’s clothes were notably - and offensively - casual. His dress shirt had wrinkles down the front, barely concealed by the man’s staple, brown, leather jacket, and his tie was fixed loosely around his throat. She could just imagine him pulling the shirt from the bottom of his laundry basket and throwing it on, hoping that leaving the police cruiser windows open as he drove would iron out the worst of his wardrobe disaster.

Magali raised her eyebrows incredulously while hiding a derisive snort behind her hand.

“You are late!” The prosecutor hissed, stalking forward and meeting the man halfway up the aisle. “And what the hell are you wearing!?” 

A few steps behind him, Emily LeDuc led a trepidatious Julie towards the prosecution bench, attempting to keep her distracted with idle banter while the young girl’s eyes flitted anxiously around the room. 

“I had to pick up your other witnesses, didn’t I?” Odd barked back. 

“What, you couldn’t have left just a bit earlier to do that?” Elisabeth offered the women a tight lipped smile as they slipped past and took their seats, before pulling Odd further away. “And you couldn’t have picked out a clean shirt?”

The detective rolled his eyes in response. 

“Odd, Duncan’s defense attorney is going to try to make you look incompetent and dishonest. You just gave her a _wardrobe_ full of ammo against you!” Elisabeth glanced at the rest of the room, making sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. When she turned back, Odd had crossed his arms over his chest defensively.

“You’re acting like this is my first time in court, Delmas. You don’t need to hold my hand!”

 _“Are you okay…? Let me see…”_

Her own hand jumped to the edge of her jaw, fingers covering the same spot Odd had held two nights prior. He had looked at her so intensely, first with concern and then with heat, all pretenses and façades dropped in that single moment after Duncan’s interrogation. Now those looks were gone, replaced with something akin to frustration and discomfort, and he was pushing their mostly good-natured gibes closer to hateful territory. 

“Just a reminder... _Détective_.” Her tone matched his with an equal bite.

The sound of Judge Fumet’s chamber door creaking open startled the pair, and Elisabeth ushered the detective to his seat before taking her place behind the prosecution bench.

“Bonjour, asseyez-vous, s’il vous plaît.” As he spoke, a second and third judge appeared in the doorway, leading six jurors out onto the judge’s bench. “Je suis Juge Gilles Fumet, I will be assisted by Assesseurs Savorani and Meyer today. We’re here for Peter Duncan’s pre-trial hearing, is that correct?”

Before Elisabeth could answer, Magali spoke up. “Oui, Monsieur Juge.”

“Maître, Madame Procureure, do you have anything to bring to my attention?”

Both women responded in the negative. 

“Alright. We’re here today, Friday the twenty-sixth of June, for the pre-trial hearing of Peter Duncan. Duncan is charged with the assault and facilitation of rape of a minor. Maître you may begin your opening statement.”

Magali rose slowly from her seat and thanked the judge before gathering her notes and sauntering to the center of the room. It reminded Elisabeth so much of her own first year out of law school: still wet behind the ears and enjoying the drama of being in front of a judge and jury - in front of an _audience_. It was all theatrics, really, just with dimmer lighting, much less makeup, and a penchant for going off script. 

“Je m’appelle Magali de Vasseur. Je suis l’avocat de Peter Duncan, bonjour madames et monsieurs. My client told me, when I first met him-”

“What, like a day ago?” Odd snarked under his breath. Elisabeth half-turned in her seat and shot him a glare. 

He pointedly ignored her.

“-that he wanted the judge and jury to know how his rehabilitation program was going. You see, Peter Duncan has been in rehab the past couple of weeks, and waiting the past two days for this hearing has put a lot of stress on him-”

“Weeks consecutively? What the fuck does a pimp-junkie have to be stressed about?” Odd muttered, louder this time. The prosecutor didn’t have time to turn around before she heard Emily sock the detective in the arm.

But Odd, for all of his snide commentary, was right. Attempting to garner sympathy for Duncan was a rookie move, one fraught with holes in its logic. Elisabeth hid a smirk behind her hand as she jotted down notes on the spare paper in front of her. 

“I have a question for the jury. It’s a rhetorical one, no need to have studied,” there was a round of chuckling at Magali’s humor, “but I want you to keep it in mind during the trial. Do you believe it’s possible for the justice system to fail the public?”

The jurors glanced hesitantly at one another, soft murmurs rippling amongst them.

“Do you believe it’s possible that the people meant to help you - meant to protect you - might not be the good guys you need them to be?”

Elisabeth’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. What was Magali insinuating? That the justice system had somehow failed Duncan? In the prosecutor’s opinion, the only thing the justice system had failed to do in terms of Peter Duncan was keep him locked up. He had pimped out a sixteen-year-old girl, they had proof, they had _video_ proof…

“Madame Procureure, are you ready to cross-examine your first witness?”

With a start, Elisabeth realized that every eye in the room was on her. Her heart rate picked up speed as her brain rotated like a rolodex through every piece of evidence, every fact from the files, and every possible argument. Magali wouldn’t have used an opening statement like that if she didn’t have a hidden ace somewhere. How could she possibly paint Duncan as a victim with the amount of evidence stacked against him…?

White pawn to e4. The defense attorney had played an interesting first move.

“Ah, oui, Monsieur Juge.”

There was a brief silence, interrupted only by the sound of shuffling papers, before Judge Fumet motioned for Elisabeth to start. “Go ahead, then.”

_Had it really only been forty-five minutes since the conclusion of Duncan’s interrogation? All she wanted to do was stumble into the shower and scrub her skin raw. Anything to get the feeling of Duncan’s grimy hands off of her throat and his foul stench out of her nostrils. Instead, she had been called straight to the ER from the police station at the request of Victim Services. They wanted her to assist with the victim’s interview. Elisabeth knew she was supposed to have some semblance of pity for the girl, but she was all at once too tense and too exhausted to feel much of anything._

_“I c-can’t testify! I c-can’t, he’s my boyfriend!” Julie sputtered between sob-induced hiccups._

_Sex work jargon had never made sense to the prosecutor. Besides turning illicit vulgarity into something more palatable, it served only to manipulate and gaslight women into staying victims of brutish men. Boyfriends were supposed to take you on dates, buy you flowers and dinner, and treat you right. There was nothing romantic about the relationship between Julie and her pimp, especially where Duncan was concerned, and Elisabeth couldn’t imagine that fucking other men for money was Julie’s idea of a ‘hot date’._

_‘Maybe Ulrich’s right.’ The raven haired woman mused. ‘Maybe I am too vulgar. And a little whorephobic.’_

_“Please, n-no! I can’t, I can’t! He’ll k-kill me!”_

Julie’s knuckles had turned a sickly shade of white from the intensity of her grip on the wooden railing in front of her. She somehow looked smaller and much more frail on the witness stand than she had in a hospital bed, and Elisabeth was struck by how young the girl really was. 

“Bonjour Julie. Ça va?” Elisabeth asked. 

“I...um, I’ve been better.”

The response garnered a soft, sympathetic murmur from the jurors, just as the prosecutor had hoped.

“Well, thank you for being here today Julie, and thank you for being brave. Just remember to speak up so we can hear you. In your own words, can you please tell us what happened on the night of Wednesday, June twenty-fourth at The Hermitage Hotel?”

_“I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Whatever happened to you, reliving it on that witness stand is going to feel like you’re being victimized again.” The prosecutor handed Julie another tissue as a fresh round of crocodile tears bubbled up in her red-rimmed eyes. “If you cry, you cry. If you need a break, we’ll give you a break. You can keep your eyes on me the whole time, if you want. You just need to tell the court exactly what happened.”_

As Julie recounted the night of Duncan’s arrest, Elisabeth’s eyes were drawn towards the prosecution bench. Much to her surprise, Odd was intently focused on the prosecutor, his eyebrows knitted tightly together in the same look of frustration from earlier. She could feel her cheeks flush in embarrassment. How long had he been staring? Since Julie had taken the stand? Longer, even? A glimmer of fear briefly replaced Odd’s frustration as he realized his glaring had been noted, and he jerked his head back towards the witness stand. 

“...then the detectives kicked open the door and I ran to the paramedic. The blond detective interviewed me.”

Elisabeth nodded, quickly returning her attention to the girl. “Thank you, Julie. Can you identify the detective and paramedic, please? And Monsieur Duncan?”

Once Julie had pointed to Odd, Emily, and Duncan, Elisabeth moved back to the prosecution bench. “Let the record show that my witness has identified the detective, paramedic, and defendant. Monsieur Juge, I pass the witness.”

Magali stalked to the center of the room and took Elisabeth’s place, turning to face Julie. As the defense attorney perused the file in her hands, the prosecutor couldn’t help but notice the antsy way the woman shifted from side to side. With the big game she had spoken before the trial, and the opening statement that had come out of nowhere, Elisabeth had expected much more confidence in her demeanour. 

“Mademoiselle Vigourox, I’m Monsieur Duncan’s defense attorney. I’m going to ask you questions about your testimony, okay?”

Julie nodded.

“Alright, can you tell me your relationship to Monsieur Duncan?” 

“He’s my, um, boyfriend.”

“Your boyfriend?” Magali reiterated, eyebrows raised.

Elisabeth leaned forward from her perch on the edge of the prosecution bench. “Monsieur Juge, let the record show that Julie is using jargon for the word ‘pimp’.”

Black pawn to e6.

Fumet nodded his approval and Magali pressed on. “Mademoiselle Vigourox, how long have you been working as a prostitute?”

_“His attorney will use the fact that you’re a sex-worker against you. Just answer their questions. If they step over the line I’m right there to object.”_

Julie squirmed uncomfortably, glancing back at Elisabeth. “Almost a year, now.”

“Have you known Monsieur Duncan for all of that time?”

“No, just the past three months.”

“And before today, has Monsieur Duncan ever assaulted you?” Magali closed the file in front of her. 

The prosecutor could see the muscles in Julie’s back tense as she weighed the pros and cons of turning tail and sprinting out of the door. 

“Yes…”

“On the police report it says you were on drugs, is that correct?” Magali asked. 

The jurors were exchanging glances once again, this time with disdain towards Julie’s predicament. Elisabeth narrowed her eyes at Magali. Could the woman really be playing this card? The defense attorney’s questions were following such a straightforward pattern, one that the prosecutor could have struck down in her sleep. The victim had been attacked before - so they deserved it, the victim was drunk or high while being attacked - so they deserved it, the victim had previously consented so why not this time - they deserved it...the assault case cliche, if there ever was one. Yet, despite using such a tried-and-true defense strategy, Magali seemed distracted from Julie’s cross-examination.

 _‘What the hell is she waiting for…’_ Elisabeth pondered. 

Duncan’s testimony? What information did he have? What could that pervert possibly say to salvage their defense?

“Let me get this right, Mademoiselle. My client has supposedly assaulted you before, but you felt comfortable going with him to The Hermitage Hotel?” Magali looked towards the jurors. “So comfortable, in fact, that you went with him _while_ intoxicated?”

“It wasn’t really that I was comfortable, I just...I had my earnings, and-”

Magali turned back to Julie, like a wolf bearing down on a lamb. “You didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation in you to think that perhaps, if he had hit you before, he’d do it again?”

“Oh come on, are you fucking kidding me?”

For a brief moment, Elisabeth was convinced that she had imagined the vulgar outburst, but one look at Magali’s shocked expression - and Judge Fumet’s aggravated one - struck that notion down. The prosecutor whipped around to face the two witnesses behind her. Emily’s eyes were just as wide as Elisabeth’s, quickly turning down to face her lap as she spotted the raven-haired woman’s visage. Next to her, Odd was glaring daggers at the defense attorney, his chest heaving and his mouth still agape from the words it had emitted. It was unusually poor tempered behavior, even for the blond detective, the likes of which Elisabeth hadn’t seen in her time of knowing him. His expression soured even further as he realized all eyes in the room were on him. 

“Détective Della Robbia, you will get your chance to be cross-examined. In the meantime, if you’d like to wait quietly for that, we’d appreciate it.” Judge Fumet gave both Odd and Elisabeth pointed looks before motioning for Magali to continue. 

“Well, I…” The defense attorney spluttered, clearly affronted that the momentary outburst had derailed her questioning. “I suppose I pass the witness.”

A second white pawn, this time to d4.

Elisabeth quickly gathered herself, casting a warning glance in Odd’s direction, before once again taking her place in front of Julie. The young girl had fresh tear tracks down her cheeks, and she hastily scrubbed at her face with her sleeves before facing the prosecutor. 

“Julie,” Elisabeth started, giving the young girl a comforting wink, “can you tell the court who provided you with the drugs on the night of Monsieur Duncan’s arrest?”

“Um...Peter did. He always does, he has for over a month now.”

There was a flurry of murmurs amongst the jurors. 

“Right, Peter Duncan. And on that same night, did you see Monsieur Duncan take any illicit substances?” 

“Oui, Madame, we both did the coke together.”

The courtroom erupted with shocked commentary at Julie’s revelation. The testimony had completely unraveled Magali’s opening statement and any sympathy that had come with it. Judge Fumet’s gavel and the raucous chatter of the room faded away as Elisabeth looked to the defense attorney. Whatever expression the prosecutor had expected, amused condescension wasn’t it. Instead, Magali looked perfectly content with the outcome of Julie’s words; her client even more so. That couldn’t be right, could it…? Magali should have been upset, or at the very least disconcerted, that her client had been painted in such a bad light.

 _‘Merde...merde merde merde…’_ She couldn’t quite place it, but something felt _off_. The whole chessboard was beginning to tilt, the pieces sliding dangerously close to the precipice. 

“Not only did Duncan facilitate the sex work of a minor, but he also provided her - and himself - with illicit drugs. As you might recall, Maître de Vasseur told us that he’d been in and out of rehab, recently. Sounds to me like it hasn’t been working. No further questions, Juge Fumet.” Elisabeth finished.

Magali waived away the offer to once again cross-examine Julie, and Elisabeth ushered the young girl away from the witness stand. As soon as she reached the prosecution bench, she plopped down next to Emily. 

“You did a really good job!” The paramedic cooed, wrapping a comforting arm around the shaking girl. Elisabeth nodded in agreement before turning towards Odd.

“I know what you’re going to say.” The detective was stubbornly looking everywhere but the prosecutor’s face. “I didn’t mean to say it that loud.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything _at all_.” Elisabeth shot back.

It wasn’t quite hatred in his eyes, as both sets of blue finally met each other, but it was close. A mix of fear and anger, sure, but there was something under it that the prosecutor hadn’t been able to discern since the detective had stepped into the courtroom. She had spent the last two nights desperately trying to get the interrogation out of her head, desperately trying to get the delicate way Odd had _touched her_ out of her head, but now the only thing stuck in her head was an incessant worry that she had somehow done something very wrong.

“Maître, you may call the next witness.” Judge Fumet announced. 

Elisabeth reached for Duncan’s file, ready to take notes on his statement, while Magali returned to the center of the room.

“Monsieur Juge, I call Détective Della Robbia to the stand.”

She caught the file moments before it slipped from her fingers. Odd? _Already?_ Anxiety flooded the prosecutor’s extremities as the detective got to his feet and brushed past, the pieces falling into place one by one in Elisabeth’s mind. The defense attorney’s cold, bored, demeanour towards Julie, and Duncan’s evident apathy towards his own predicament, were suddenly much more suspicious. 

_‘It’s Odd, isn’t it...what does she want with Odd…?’_

“Bonjour, Détective. Ça va?” 

Odd shrugged. “Oui, Maître.”

“You responded to the 112 call resulting in a police visit to The Hermitage Hotel on the night of Wednesday, June twenty-fourth, correct?”

“Yes, my partner and I did.”

“Right.” Magali opened the file in her hands. “Détective, would you walk me through your role in my client’s interrogation?”

Elisabeth bristled.

“I was there to keep the peace, make sure Eli- Procureure Delmas was safe while she questioned Duncan.”

_Heavy hands encircled her throat, the chain connecting Duncan’s handcuffs pressing tightly against her windpipe. Air whooshed from her lungs as soon as her shoulder blades hit the wall, but she dared not take a breath with Duncan’s snarling lips inches from her face._

_“You little kike slut! I’ll tear you into fucking pieces with my bare hands! I’ll rip your fucking eyes out!”_

_Then, nothing; no pressure, no spit, no hot breath. Two hands, warm and familiar, grabbed her shoulders. Ulrich. Ulrich yelling, telling her to go into the hallway. Odd behind him, screaming at Duncan with a vice grip on the suspect’s lapels, but what was he screaming..?_

“And what happened during the interrogation, Détective?”

The prosecutor straightened, drawing herself to her full height and squaring her stance. “Monsieur Juge, objection! What does this have to do with the charges against Peter Duncan?”

“I promise I’m getting there, Monsieur.” Magali explained to the judge with a saccharine smile. 

“Overruled, but get there quickly, Maître.” Fumet responded.

Odd waited for the defense attorney to prompt his continuance. “Elisab- Procureure Delmas started asking him about Mademoiselle Vigourox, then she asked him some questions about a case that seemed similar. He, ah...he started hassling the prosecutor, and then he got upset and he grabbed her by the throat. I subdued the suspect and my partner escorted him out of the interrogation room.”

Magali pulled a paper from the file and handed it to Odd, who gently took and glanced over it.

“Détective, could you describe this photo for the court?”

“It’s Duncan’s mugshot.” When Magali didn’t respond, Odd pressed on. “He’s got a few scratches and bruises on him.”

“Right. And does the Boulogne-Billancourt police department encourage physically harming suspects while attempting to subdue them, Détective? Or was that an individual choice? I ask because he has a swollen jaw, bruised neck, and finger marks along the skin above his sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. I know you know what those are.”

The detective handed the paper back to her. “He was fighting back. Sometimes subduing a suspect gets rough.”

Magali switched tactics. “You were formerly a paramedic, were you not?”

“Objection, again! Where is this going, de Vasseur?” Elisabeth interrupted. 

On the judge’s bench, Fumet leaned in towards the assesseurs on his left. The three muttered quietly as the rest of the room waited with baited breath for their ruling. 

Judge Fumet wetted his lips before speaking. “Maître, where is this going?”

“I’m...vetting the witness’ reliability.”

Elisabeth raised her arms incredulously as Judge Fumet waived for Odd to answer.

“I worked as a paramedic in Boulogne-Billancourt for three years before applying to the precinct.” 

The defense attorney pulled a second paper from her file and held it out to Odd. In an instant, his entire demeanour changed. Gone was the laissez-faire, mildly inconvenienced, slouch that the detective had strode in with, replaced by tension and fear that were evident in his entire body as he leaned away from the offending item. Elisabeth stepped forward, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was on the page. 

“Can you describe this to the court, Détective?” Magali asked, tone dripping with malice.

Odd’s voice shook as he responded. “It’s my psychiatric evaluation from my police application.”

The prosecutor was floored. How the _hell_ had Magali managed to snag the detective’s psych eval? Those records were sealed, requiring a mountain of paperwork and two to four business weeks for processing - she should know, she’d subpoenaed police records more times than she could count. Elisabeth glanced at Odd’s back, her heart twinging at the way his body trembled.

_‘Say something, Elisabeth, come on! Object, do something!’_

“All prospective officers are required to take a psychiatric evaluation before being considered for hire. Except you, Détective Della Robbia.” The defense attorney snarked. “You took two evaluations, because you failed your first one.”

“I didn’t fail the first one, I-”

Magali began reading from the paper. “‘Odd Della Robbia shows consistent symptoms of undiagnosed ADHD, PTSD, and dissociative episodes that considerably impact daily functions. After consulting the precinct psychiatrist, Hans Klotz, further evaluation will be necessary before hiring’. After finding that out, I looked further into your record. Inability to control temper, verbal outbursts that relegated you to the desk, and now physical intimidation that very possibly resulted in a coerced confession from my client. Any normal person would label you unstable and unfit for duty.”

Queens, kings, bishops, and knights all teetered dangerously before taking their swan dive off the edge, shattering all around them as Magali flipped the chessboard. 

As the room erupted into a frenzy of shouting and gavel banging, the prosecutor sucked in a deep breath. A feeling of unreality had settled over her, creating an uncanny movie-like effect on the unfolding scene. She squeezed her fists into tight balls and dug her nails into the palms of her hands, hoping the pinching sensation would bring her senses back to the courtroom. It was no use. She was stuck, mouth gummed up, too shocked to speak.

“How can we trust the testimony of an unstable, hotheaded, psychiatric evaluation washout?” The defense attorney snipped. 

_‘Come on, Delmas, come on...evidence, the evidence wasn’t revealed prior to trial...it’s off topic, it’s inadmissible, she’s harassing the witness, it’s-’_

“You...you want to talk about physical intimidation?” It was Odd’s voice this time, wet with smothered tears, the words coming out in harsh pants. “Your client grabbed Elisabeth by the fucking throat and pinned her against the wall. How about we tell the jury what he has tattooed inside his fucking lip, ah? A swastika! Your neo-nazi client threatened to kill a Jewish prosecutor. She had bruises on her neck!”

_“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH HER! Don’t you FUCKING touch her!”_

The sound of the judge demanding Odd’s silence, and berating the two lawyers for their incompetence, reached Elisabeth’s ears as a loud, unintelligible, buzzing. It was giving her a headache, and she could feel exhaustion and the overwhelming urge to lay down threaten to overtake her. 

_‘Shut Odd up before he makes a scene!’_

“No, fuck that! I-I protected her, that’s my job! Your client is a scumbag, and you know what!? If given even half the chance I’d hit him again!”

The detective’s words were the last straw for Judge Fumet, who jumped to his feet and slammed the gavel down with a startling _crack_. The silence that ensued left even the jurors visibly rattled, the last remnants of noise settling over them as an incessant ringing. For the first time since the start of the pre-trial hearing, everyone was quiet, waiting on Judge Fumet’s next words. 

“All three of you have turned today’s proceeding into a goddamn farce! Have you no shame!? Maître de Vasseur, you failed to turn evidence over at the start of this hearing. I’ll chalk it up to your blatant inexperience and leave you with a warning. Do you understand?”

Magali nodded stiffly and returned to her seat, whispering something to Duncan.

“For right now,” the judge continued, “we will call a mistrial and reschedule. Monsieur Duncan will be granted release and be placed under the supervision of a probation officer who will collect a urine sample once a week. If he fails the drug test or fails to check-in with his officer, he’s back in a cell until the retrial.”

Julie let out a panicked whimper, tucking herself further into Emily’s side. Elisabeth made worried eye contact with the paramedic before returning her gaze to the judge. 

“Procureure Delmas, I’m shocked at the lack of professionalism on behalf of your witness. I sincerely hope this lesson humbles the both of you. If there are no further questions, this… ‘kangaroo court’ is adjourned.”

Odd’s shoulder bumped heavily against hers as he peeled away from the witness stand and hurriedly staggered down the aisle, the courtroom doors slamming open and closed in his wake. In haste, Elisabeth brushed off Emily’s attempts at discussion and squeezed past the jurors, following the detective into the hall. 

“Odd! Odd, wait!” She grabbed his arm moments before he could disappear into the refuge of the men’s lavatory. “Odd, are you alright…?”

“Let go of me, Delmas.” He threw her hand off and pressed himself against the wall. 

His chest was heaving with the beginnings of a panic attack, eyes darting around for an exit to the ensuing conversation. He looked younger, more vulnerable, and Elisabeth wanted more than anything to reach out to him.

She had seen Ulrich talk Odd down from panic attacks a hundred times, his hands held out placatingly as he cooed and hushed the crying man. What was it he always said? That specific phrase that he used to prompt Odd to open up…?

With her hands held out in front of her, Elisabeth opened her mouth. 

“Don’t. I-I don’t care what you’re about t-to say, or admonish, or whatever it is that lawyers do to their witnesses. I don’t need your shit.”

The prosecutor was taken aback by the ferocity of his tone. Suddenly, she felt foolish. Odd didn’t deserve the vitriol and humiliation that Magali had thrown his way, nor did he deserve to have his psychiatric record rubbed in his face as a symbol of his failures. As soon as the judge had adjourned the court, Elisabeth’s only thought was to check on Odd, to make sure he was okay. 

Now here she was, haggard from the absurdity of the pre-trial, concern etched into every line on her face, with embarrassment creeping up her neck and cheeks in a red-hot flush. Why the hell had she been worried about him? It wasn’t like they were close; merely acquaintances with a mutual best friend. She didn’t care what happened to him. She _didn’t_. Even if the sting of tears welling up in her eyes suggested otherwise. 

Fine. If he wanted to be admonished, she’d gladly oblige. 

“I...what the hell were you thinking, connard!? Yelling at Magali like that, yelling at _Juge Fumet_ like that!?” 

“I was thinking that that bitch was defending the fucking neo-nazi who hurt you! I was backing you up!” The detective shot back. 

Elisabeth balked. “Well that’s her job! She defends criminals for a living! And I don’t need you to back me up, Della Robbia. I’m the lawyer, you’re the witness! You don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!”

Odd stepped forward and leaned over, the four inch height advantage aiding in his intimidating glare. “Didn’t need me to back you up, huh? Sure looked like you did with Duncan’s hands around your throat.”

The silence that followed Odd’s words was stifling, descending heavily upon both of them.

“So that’s what this is about then? You’re annoyed that you had to save the ‘damsel in distress’ from the big, bad, neo-nazi?” She swallowed. “All of those times I insulted you, or...or teased you, it was just that, okay? Teasing! I didn’t realize you hated me so much that you’d go so far as to torch my fucking case!”

“Christ, that is what I hate the most about you, Elisabeth! You think that everything is about _you_! You’re not that fucking special!” After a pause, he added, “No, what you really are is pathetic.”

The prosecutor threw her head back and barked out a laugh that echoed down the hallway. “I’m the pathetic one, Della Robbia? Really?”

“Yes, you’re pathetic! Pathetic and stupid. Following Ulrich around like a lovesick puppy hoping that one day he might just fuck you again! Newsflash…” the detective snarled, finger prodding her collarbone for emphasis, “...the used-up, precinct whore just isn’t his type!”

 _“Or was your mother just the precinct whore?”_ It was far too close to Duncan’s words about Marion for the prosecutor’s comfort.

White noise filled Elisabeth’s brain as she processed the litany of insults Odd had laid down before her. She knew she wasn’t a whore, or a hedonist, or any other name that the detective was capable of acrimoniously pronouncing her, but it hurt all the same. She stepped back blindly until her shoulders were against the wall, her eyes fixed pointedly on the man’s neck so he couldn’t see her cry.

Did she really care what he thought about her? The man she exchanged verbal blows with every chance she got? She supposed she should have seen this coming: the ‘yearning for approval from everyone around her to make up for its absence in childhood’. 

Or whatever the hell her therapist had spouted two sessions in. 

“Is that what you think, then?” The raven-haired woman muttered, words barely passing through lips tight with grief.

“I…” Odd rubbed a hand down his face and took a step back. “I need to go back to work.” 

She waited for his footsteps to soften with distance before hastily wiping at her wet cheeks.

The sharp, snarky sound of Magali’s voice floated over from a nearby pillar where the defense attorney was chatting on her cell phone, rousing Elisabeth from her self-pity.

 _‘That fucking bitch…’_ She stalked towards the woman, hands clenching and unclenching as she did. Who better to take the anger of the conversation with Odd out on than the woman who had derailed the trial?

“Hey Magali!” Elisabeth snarled. “A word?”

Regardless of Odd’s abysmal attitude, watching him cower in the face of Magali reading his file had left a bad taste in Elisabeth’s mouth. Gripping the defense attorney by her lawyer’s robes, the prosecutor shoved her hard against the pillar and relished in the shorter woman’s cry of pain. The cellphone that was pressed to her ear moments before clattered to the floor and skittered away from them. 

“You psychotic bitch! What the hell are you doing!?” Magali hissed, shoving at Elisabeth. 

The prosecutor stood her ground. “You threw that trial on purpose, didn’t you!? You had two days to prepare for the pre-trial, de Vasseur, how the hell did you get a hold of Odd’s psychiatric file!?”

“Prouve le! Putain de garce! Get off of me!”

“Uh uh, bitch.” Elisabeth pressed her arm to the defense attorney’s throat and leaned in close. “How did you get Odd’s psychiatric papers, huh!? Don’t forget that I own this goddamn legal circuit, I could end your career here and now!”

Magali squirmed, eyeing the prosecutor and mulling the thinly veiled threat over in her mind. When the pressure on her throat increased, she relented. “Okay, okay! Fine!”

Elisabeth let go, allowing the defense attorney to reach into her briefcase. A manila envelope, sealed by a small, brass, clasp, slowly emerged and fell unceremoniously into the prosecutor’s hands. 

With an uncertain glance at Magali, she undid the clasp and reached inside, her hands wrapping around a handful of papers. Further in, she could feel a hefty stack of bank notes resting at the bottom of the package.

_‘Putain de merde...corrupt bitch!’_

Elisabeth turned over the papers to read them. Copies of Detective Della Robbia’s psychiatric report, physical, incident reports, and range scores were stacked neatly, one after the other, and held together by a silver paperclip. It was fairly organized, and fairly _impossible_. The precinct always took its sweet time processing requests. Yet, somehow, the defense attorney had managed to snag the paperwork in less than forty-eight hours.

“You were bribed…?” Elisabeth asked, eyebrows perched high on her forehead. 

Magali snatched the bank notes from her hand. “I...yes, okay? This folder was on my desk late last night. No return address, no name. Just that note.” 

No bigger than a postcard, tucked neatly at the top of the stack, it read: 

_**One thousand Euros if you use the information in this file. There will be a thousand more waiting for you if you manage to get Duncan off the hook. Make Della Robbia look untrustworthy.** _

“How did they know you wouldn’t just take the money and run?” Elisabeth asked, watching as the defense attorney hastily stowed the euros in her briefcase. 

Magali shrugged. “A colleague asked if I would take on Duncan’s case pro bono. Rent, bills, you know how it is, Delmas. Two-thousand Euros to fudge one pro bono case isn’t a bad deal. You’re not going to turn me in, are you?” 

Elisabeth weighed the thought in her mind. On one hand she desperately wanted the board to tear Magali a new one, especially after what she’d done to Odd. On the other, it would tip off the envelope’s sender and threaten the paper trail they had so carelessly left behind. 

“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood for an inquisition. Besides, I’m sure the guilt will eat you up eventually.” 

“I don’t feel guilt, Delmas. Maybe that’s why I win cases while you’re stuck representing a second rate police department.” As the sound of Magali’s clicking heels faded into nothing, Elisabeth returned her attention to the paperwork in front of her. 

Years of birthday cards and school permission slips flashed in her mind’s eye, the distinctive ‘i’ and ‘e’ standing out amongst the rest of the letters. It had been hastily written, but there was no denying it. 

The note was in Jean Pierre Delmas’ handwriting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be like 45 pages, so I decided to cut it down to one POV and use it as part plot-further...er and part character study on our favorite little city prosecutor. Chapter 11 will have 3 POV's (like other chapters) but I also might do more chapters like this one, where it follows the thoughts and backstory of a single character. We shall see. 
> 
> Fun fact: this chapter was a mixture of my own experiences testifying in court and some French crime dramas that I started watching after I started writing Chapter 4 of BMR. It's still definitely a dramatization, this would not happen in a court of law _at all_ because the judge would find them all in contempt of court. It's also definitely a mixture of American and French court proceedings...oh well, it's fanfiction!
> 
> I want to thank my beta readers SO MUCH for their continued service on this fic! I also want to thank the several people who have consistently commented on each chapter, you have no idea how much it makes my day to read your engagement with this fic. It seems you like reading it just as much as I like writing it - that's more than I could ever ask for. <3
> 
> Odd, Odd, Odd. What are you doing, my boy? Leave your comments down below, and tell Odd what a lil dum dum he's being.


	11. Sex, Lies, and Faking It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:  
> 1\. Discussion of dead bodies and forensic autopsy  
> 2\. Discussion of brutal murder, blood, and body parts  
> 3\. Crude jokes (specifically about sex...and nuns)  
> 4\. Mishandling of a crime scene  
> 5\. Faking a seizure  
> 6\. Substance use  
> 7\. Mentions of suicidal ideation  
> 8\. Sexual Content (non-graphic)

“...and thank you guys for getting these fingerprints tested. Again, I just wanted to apologize for Nicolas, he can be a bit...overeager...when it comes to his job, you know? He really is a good guy…”

Jeremie tossed an absent nod in William’s direction, his brain muddling through the meaning of the officer’s words as it simultaneously tried to process the distractions around him.

Today, he decided, was not going to be a good day. 

The technician had a strict morning schedule, one that got him to the station a fair twenty-five minutes before the captain, lieutenant, and his fellow forensic technician. When all went according to plan, he could pinpoint exactly where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to be there, and what he was supposed to be doing down to the second. Somehow, in two years of following this strict morning schedule, he hadn’t planned for an apartment-wide power cut.

 _“Einstein, where are you? We brought you some breakfast.”_

His phone had finally rung at half past six, pulling his sluggish and addled brain from a deep sleep to turn off the offending item. Ulrich’s words, their concern quickly giving way to amusement as Jeremie slapped around for his dead alarm clock in horrified realization, lit a fire under the technician’s ass. In less than twenty minutes he was out the door in yesterday’s shirt and slacks, a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth and a hastily stuffed backpack slung over his shoulder.

If the hectic start to Jeremie’s morning wasn’t bad enough, however, his unusual tardiness had emboldened Herve to turn the lab into a neurodivergent’s hellscape. The raven-haired technician was fond of working with music in the background, something that drove Jeremie crazy. This was the forensics lab, after all, not the bloody bullpen, it was supposed to be a place of science, thoughtfulness, and mourning. How the hell could they examine any of these bodies with quiet dignity if the garbage that Herve called ‘techno music’ was distracting the technicians from their duties. 

Jeremie refocused his brain on William’s rambling. 

“...you just have to be patient with him. He’s fun to have a beer with. I bet if we all hung out more, got to know each other, he’d be nicer, you know?”

The officer meant well, of that Jeremie was certain. He was genuine (if a little too on the idealistic side), personable, and managed to humanize his pompous dick of a partner. He and Ulrich were actually quite alike, the technician mused. Aloof and roguish; the afghan hounds of the Boulogne-Billancourt precinct.

“...are you doing okay? You know, after Nic threw that bottle of formaldehyde? You looked really freaked out, which is completely understandable...”

_“I put my order in first...and I get my order first.”_

In a display of dramatic irony, it just had to have been Maïtena’s morgue drawer that Nicolas smashed the formaldehyde against. 

The technician could once again feel the panic of that confrontation, hot and sour, rising up in his chest. He really wasn’t in the mood for inane chatter, let alone inane chatter about the ‘goodness’ of second-rate officers who couldn’t tell forceps from cartilage scissors.

Officers who had no respect for personal space, or sensitivity to noise, or any knowledge of how to work with neurodivergent coworkers, or…

The wet crunch of Herve’s spray bottle sent hot, staticky, zaps zig-zagging across Jeremie’s brain, interrupting the overpowering signals from Herve’s garbage techno music and William’s unceasing monologue. In a moment of clarity, the technician snatched the spray bottle out of Herve’s hands. 

“Be careful, Pichon! You’re spraying too much, you’ll destroy the evidence at this rate!”

The paper was soaked with ninhydrin, any identifiable fingerprints washed out under a deluge of deep purple liquid. Herve held the paper up, allowing excess reagent to dribble down the sheet and _plunk_ onto the catching tray. 

“Maybe if you two hadn’t been yammering on behind me, I would have been able to focus!”

Jeremie sucked in a deep breath.

 _“Just remember: it takes a world.”_ It was one of his mother’s favorite maxims, tucked away in her arsenal to use on her husband and son when they were frustrated with the people around them.

_‘Well, Angelique Belpois, you’ve never met the colossal blunder that is Herve Pichon.’_

“Herve, go turn that shit off! I can barely hear myself think!”

Behind them, the laboratory doors clattered open as Odd pushed his way through. The detective’s eyes searched the room, sizing up each of the three men before locking onto Jeremie’s abandoned office chair. 

“Della Robbia, how did the hearing go?” William greeted him.

“Mon Dieu, toi aussi!?” The detective flopped into the seat, his arms going limp over the arm rests and his head lolling over the back. The movement sent the chair backwards, dragging Odd’s oxford-clad feet along the tile with a squeak. 

“Don’t bother asking, he’s in a mood.” Ulrich entered the lab and closed the door gently behind himself, the foil to Odd’s noisy entrance. “The judge called a mistrial. Duncan was released to a probation officer.”

The brunet’s words echoed in the open room, causing Jeremie to breathe a sigh of relief. Herve had finally turned the music off, and the natural sounds of the morgue were beginning to resurface. 

Odd and Ulrich colloquially referred to it as Jeremie’s ‘noise problem’; a layman’s description of his hyper-specific misophonia. Any normal person would find the _plink_ of water in the hand-wash-only sink, the gentle hum of the refrigerated mortuary cabinets, and the buzzing of the bone-saw to be unsettling, but to Jeremie, it was comforting. An enveloping silence followed each disruption, filling his ears and settling heavily in his head. The cushion of organic noise made thinking and focusing on the task in front of him easier. 

Comparatively, the sounds that people made and the space they took up bothered the technician to no end. He’d been spoiled in his year of working alone, having gotten used to the company of the dead; no jarring noises, no interruptions, no one to encroach on his office space during lunch breaks. 

At least until Herve, Ulrich, and Odd had been hired. 

“He got _off_? What the hell?” William asked, incredulous. 

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Neither Odd nor Elisabeth will tell me what the fuck happened.” Ulrich shot his partner a pointed glare, ignoring the blond’s huff of frustration. “Which means that something clearly _did_ happen.”

Something, indeed, Jeremie mused. Elisabeth was smart, talented, and dedicated to her job. It was one of the few things that the forensic technician admired about her. If she had failed to get a conviction on a career criminal like Peter Duncan, then Ulrich’s suspicion had to be correct: the trial had gone very, very, badly. 

“Dammit. That bastard deserved to have the book thrown at him.” William said, casting Ulrich a dark look. 

The brunet nodded thoughtfully in agreement. “I’m sure he won’t stay off of our radar for very long, though. Juge Fumet just sent us a probation request. Mathias has done probation duty before, so we can assign him to watch Duncan.”

As the two dark-haired men continued conversing about Duncan, Jeremie chanced a glance at Odd. The detective’s eyes were mostly glazed over as he stared at the group, but the technician wondered if Odd could see it in the conversation, too: just how similar William and Ulrich were compared to Odd and Ulrich.

Sure, the detectives shared certain traits - kindheartedness, compassion, dedication to the job and the people they served - but where Ulrich was stoic and calculating, Odd was clownish and impetuous. With such fundamental differences, it was a wonder to Jeremie that the two got anything done.

Ulrich and William, however, shared the same thirst for justice, a need to exact legal karma that came from a deeper sense of right and wrong.

William was lawfully neutral to the very core of his being, his crusade for the justice system palpable in the way he performed his police duties. With the exception of his own partner, he was the type that intimidated even other officers into minding the rules. Jeremie was sure he’d once seen a grown man wither under William’s gaze before picking up a carelessly discarded food wrapper, of all things, and placing it into the proper receptacle.

In Ulrich, there was something much darker. If William’s arrow struck the dead center of the target, then Ulrich’s followed the arc downwards, landing somewhere in the field of chaos. Neither Jeremie nor Odd felt comfortable putting it into words, but the technician could pinpoint the exact moment the shift had happened: Ulrich lost someone very dear to him just two months prior to the detectives’ promotions, and it had changed something fundamental inside of him. He was losing his grip on that carefully honed temper he’d crafted, evident in the way he had attacked Nicolas and Peter Duncan. 

“You had something for us, Jer?” So speaketh the Devil.

Jeremie waited for Herve to reappear in the room before responding to Ulrich. “I don’t, no. Herve does.”

It was safe to admit that the technician did not understand people. Chalk it up to a lifetime of his nose stuck in books, or more likely his inability to tolerate the noise, but the complexities of the human psyche and human interaction were completely lost on him. He was a man of science, and sure Psychology was a science, but it was a _social_ science. ‘Social’, like Freud, Milgram, or Piaget’s theories, was just something the forensic technician did not do.

That was why the station had hired Herve. 

Besides being a fairly talented (if clumsy) forensic technician, Herve was also Boulogne-Billancourt’s resident criminal profiler. His expertise on antisocial behavior had helped the precinct unlock clues to cases that seemed otherwise clinically impossible to solve, and for that Jeremie was grateful. As much as he yearned to be the smartest person in the room, having someone to make up for his deficits was something he fervently admired. 

He’d never admit that out loud, though. It was best to keep his subordinates humble.

“I do, yes.” Herve chimed in, pulling the detectives’ murder board out into the open lab. “William, you might as well stick around, too. We’ll need as many eyes open for the killer as we can get, and having a criminal profile will make that easier.”

“A criminal profile?” Odd echoed, finally rising from the office chair and rejoining the group.

“Yep, more commonly known as an offender profile. The very first one was used to assemble the possible personality type of Jack the Ripper-”

“Except Jack the Ripper was never caught.” Ulrich interrupted, earning a chuckle from Odd. 

Herve shot Ulrich a glare before pressing on. 

“Serial killers are usually caucasian, twenty-five to sixty years of age, with or without prior mental health issues. You’ve got to look at demographics and the way the killer acts to create an adequate profile. Both Madame Lecuyer and Monsieur Chardin were killed in very specific ways, known as modus operandi.” The raven-haired technician pointed to two photos, one of the symbol carved between Maïtena’s breasts and the other of the symbol carved into Gustave’s forehead. “This, and the ritualistic way he cuts up his victims, are his calling cards.”

Ulrich pointed to a photo of the wall behind Gustave Chardin’s dead body. “‘This filthy piggy bit off more than he could chew’. Is that part of his MO?”

Herve shrugged. “We don’t know yet. Only one of the bodies so far was found with writing on the wall. It could be, but he’d have to do it again for it to be a part of his ritual.”

Jeremie could see in the way Ulrich and Odd exchanged concerned glances that the statement had struck a nerve. They were on the edge of their seats, trying to identify possible suspects before the killer could strike again. XANA was a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.

“There are four crime phases that need to be analyzed to identify a possible suspect.” Herve continued, writing on the board as he spoke. “Antecedent...what plan the killer had in place before the murder. Cause and manner of death...cause being the specific injury and manner being how the injury was inflicted. Body disposal...one scene or multiple...for Maïtena we can assume she was killed somewhere else and disposed of outside that restaurant, but Gustave was killed and staged in a single place: his villa. Finally, you have post-offensive behavior...the killer is actively involving himself in the case by contacting that journalist and sending her the banker’s hands.”

That had been a terrifying night, even to Jeremie. He had seen a lot of damage while working as a forensic technician; the aftermath of expiration in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. Nothing in his pre- and post-med education, however, had prepared him to see the exact moment that the light in Gustave Chardin’s eyes was snuffed out. Considerable force was needed to decapitate a body, along with an unfathomable amount of rage and a very sharp blade. It was clear that XANA was a ruthless killer with an agenda and a fixation on Kadic News’ lead writer.

 _‘Yes, but writing for what basically amounts to a gossip rag, a journalist one does not make.’_ Jeremie chuckled inwardly. 

Odd pointed to Gustave’s side of the board, honing in on the article Yumi had written. “I’ve got your antecedent. XANA wrote to Yumi that she had inspired the killing, right? The article exposed Chardin for stealing money from his bank’s patrons. Do you think XANA was-”

“Punishing him.” William finished, speaking up for the first time since Herve had started his lecture. The four men turned to look at the officer. “Della Robbia’s right, what if the killer was punishing Chardin for his crimes?”

Herve nodded. “That’s a fair conclusion. Although...what if it’s more along the lines of a crusade...”

They waited as the raven-haired technician hurried into the office and produced a laptop. He booted it up and opened a copy of the dark web video from the care package Yumi had received.

“Right here.” The video fast forwarded then stopped as XANA came into view on the screen. “Watch.”

_“You’ve been a very bad man, haven’t you, Monsieur Chardin? You’ve been a greedy little pig. You’re lucky, then, that I’ve been appointed to take care of this city’s filth. I get rid of it. I cleanse Boulogne-Billancourt, and Paris, of it.”_

Herve scrubbed backwards and played the clip again. “He calls the banker a greedy little pig, then tells him he ‘cleanses Paris’ of its filth. Pigs and filth, that’s important.”

“Why is that important?” Ulrich and Odd asked at the same time. 

“It could be biblical.” Jeremie beat Herve to the answer. “God, if you believe in that, told Moses that pigs were unclean. ‘It parts the hoof but does not chew the cud’, it’s a line in Leviticus.”

A biblical killer punishing the crooks of Paris. Couldn’t get any more Knights Templar than that.

“People think pigs are gross because they wallow around in their own shit.” Ulrich pronounced, skeptically. “Your theory is a bit of a stretch. Like you said, we have one body with words and explanations as to his death. Maïtena’s body was cut up and left in a dumpster to rot. Not exactly a pattern.”

Yet.

Not exactly a pattern, _yet_. A glance around told him that Odd and William were thinking the same thing. If they had a biblical killer on their hands, one who thought he was following God’s will in annihilating sinners, there would be no end to the list of potential victims. 

Chardin was a high-profile kill whose transgressions had been splattered all over the front page news. In XANA’s screwed up logic, his death was a rational end to corruption. Maïtena, however, was a no-name sex worker that likely wouldn’t have been identified had Yumi Ishiyama not stumbled across the crime scene. What was her sin? Did prostitution make her unclean? A ‘filthy pig’? If so, they were going to have a lot more dead hookers on their hands.

“Should we identify potential victims and put them in protective custody?” William asked. 

“Find all of the sinners? We’d have to put three-fourths of the city in protective custody if that’s who he’s going after.” Ulrich scoffed. “The only people left would be children and nuns.”

Odd snorted. “I’ve seen some dirty nuns around Boulogne-Billancourt and Clichy, you know.”

“Do let me know when you take the comedy show on the road, won’t you, boys?” Herve snarked at the detectives, returning his attention to the laptop in front of him.

“So what about this symbol then?” Ulrich moved over to the whiteboard and pointed to a computer rendering of XANA’s symbol. “The circles with four lines extending from the outer one? Have you found any information on what it could possibly mean?” 

Odd shook his head. “It could be four lines going inside of it.”

 _‘Trust Odd to make a penetration joke at a time like this.’_ Jeremie mused.

Still, the discussion of the case seemed to have brought life back to the man’s visage. He was no longer the guilty-looking pale he had walked in as, and his teeth had stopped clenching tight enough to reveal the muscles along his jawline. If they had to put up with a few raunchy one-liners to stop the blond detective from moping, then so be it. Jeremie hated moping more than he hated procreation jokes. 

“It’s not a symbol of fecundity, if that’s what you’re asking.” Herve responded. 

Odd raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t even know if that’s what I was asking, Pichon. What the hell is a fecundity?” 

“Fecundity.” Jeremie interrupted, snatching up a whiteboard marker and replacing Ulrich at the murder board. “Root word is fecund, latin for fecundus. It means fruitful. It’s the potential for reproduction in a species, and it’s definitely not what this means. The circles seem to be some bastardization of a solar symbol. For reference, this is what the Egyptian Hieroglyph for the sun looks like...”

The source of the symbol had been seared into his eyes, so much so that he could see it when he slept. It was close to a sun, but not exactly a sun. The sun had been worshipped as a source of power for eons, a life-giving force that rulers from ancient civilizations had claimed to receive their god-like status from. Jeremie thought that the circles in the symbol used by XANA looked more like an eye, perhaps even an “all-seeing” one. It would certainly fit the ‘warrior of god’, ‘punisher of sins’ MO that the killer had exhibited.

The four lines were harder to discern. The number four had a long history of symbolism over a wide collection of cultures and religions. In Chinese, the number four sounded like the word for death, making it unlucky, but in other cultures it held the opposite connotation. Four, as in the four cardinal directions. Four, like the four points of the cross, the symbol of god and universality. The latter would make sense if the killer had an extreme relationship with religion.

“...but in the end, this is all just speculation. We don’t have a solid meaning to go off of here, or know why the spot it was carved into changed between the victims.”

Ulrich, Odd, and William were looking between the board, Jeremie, and each other, confusion written on their faces. He could sympathize, it was a lot of information to take in, but the symbol was the most important piece of information they had so far. The only thing that could connect them to a possible suspect. 

“Okay, so the killer might think he’s some sort of god? Or God, himself? Or he’s working for God?” Ulrich reiterated, looking to Jeremie and Herve for confirmation. 

The technicians both nodded encouragingly. 

“Which means,” the brunet continued, “that...I don’t know where to start. Do we look up churches and start from there? That’s a lot of work, and it's not like we’re just going to synagogues, mosques, and cathedrals. There’s a handful of Buddhist, Hindu, and zoroastrian places of worship in Paris, too.”

“No,” Jeremie held up a hand to stop Ulrich, “we need to start smaller than that.”

Odd rolled his shoulders back, authoritatively. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that. We should look into murders of sex workers in and around the area, see if any had the same ‘modem operation’, or whatever. Maïtena might have been his starting point, and then he escalated from there. After that, we look in the news for any high profile legal cases. The defendants might be in danger, so we should run surveillance.” 

Jeremie was about to comment on Odd’s sudden solemnity when a thought occurred to him. “Wait, high profile legal cases…”

“Putain de merde, Peter Duncan.” Ulrich finished. “If growing up with a Catholic kinderfrau taught me anything, he’s definitely a sinner.”

The technician was momentarily taken aback by the detective’s revelation. Ulrich’s German accent was prominent, even when speaking French, as a vestige of having moved to Paris only a month prior to working at the precinct. It was unusual, though, for the man to revert to his first language, and even more unusual for him to offer up any part of his life in Germany prior to Boulogne-Billancourt. 

_‘You haven’t exactly asked, or offered up your own childhood for examination.’_ Jeremie quickly reminded himself.

“Maybe Odd and I should surveil Duncan, make sure there aren’t any attempts on his life before the retrial.”

“We can’t.” Odd shuffled his feet, looking anywhere but at his partner. “Juge Fumet would have a fit if he knew I was tailing Duncan. Especially after this morning.”

Ulrich’s eyebrows furrowed together as he tilted his head in disbelief. “What the hell did yo-”

“It’s okay, Ulrich.” William jumped in before the brunet could finish his sentence. “Nicolas and I can keep an eye on Duncan for you and Della Robbia. I’ll go let him know. We have to patrol in thirty, anyways.”

Ulrich thanked the officer and Jeremie waited until it was only the four of them left before addressing the detectives. 

“Guys, there’s something you need to know.”

_“Captain Delmas? Can I help you?”_

_The Captain startled and yanked his hand backwards, as though he’d been burned, away from the full table of Gustave Chardin’s personal effects. It was rare, and disconcerting, for either Captain Delmas or Lieutenant Morales to set foot inside the forensics lab, and Jeremie could feel his skin prickle with discomfort in the man’s presence._

_Delmas was visibly flustered at having been caught, his face a ruddy hue as visible frustration mounted. “I, well, uh, yes. I wanted to check in on the status of Gustave Chardin’s autopsy.”_

_Behind the technician, Herve stepped out of the shared office space to see what was going on._

_For once, Jeremie was glad for the raven-haired man’s presence._

_“We’re still working on it. We should have the final autopsy reports to Detectives Della Robbia and Stern, soon. I can copy you in, if you’d like?” The technician kept his face as passive as possible to stare down the man in front of him._

_“Yes, that would be fine.” Jean Pierre turned back to the evidence table. “This was everything from his villa?”_

_“Everything important to the case, yes. Did you need something else, Captain?”_

_The man bristled at Jeremie’s tone, but didn’t respond. He was looking for something, the technician was sure of that much, but what? What did Gustave Chardin have that Jean Pierre wanted? Did the two know each other? The technician waited a beat longer as the Captain continued eyeing the evidence table._

_“Should I send you a list of all the evidence we’ve recovered?” He’d do anything if it meant getting the Captain out of his laboratory._

_“...Yes, that would be fine.Thank you.” With one last hesitant glance over the evidence, Jean Pierre absently nodded his goodbye and left the room._

“He didn’t say what he was looking for, though. I don’t think he touched anything, but I’d feel better if I searched for any extraneous fingerprints, anyways.” Jeremie eyed the detectives in front of him. “I think you’d better watch your back with this case.”

The detectives were glancing at each other, expressions equally disconcerted.

“Do the two of you have something to share with the class, then?” Herve accused, stowing his laptop and rolling away the murder board.

Jeremie was unsurprised that Odd, looking guiltier now than he had when walking through the laboratory doors, only spoke up after a none-too-gentle nudge in the ribs from his partner.

“I, uh...I may have found a journal that belonged to Chardin.”

“What? Where?”

“...well, in Chardin’s home office...” 

A journal...? There wasn’t a journal on the evidence list. They’d found a heavy-duty safe filled with stacks of cash, notebooks detailing a few transactions, a dime bag of what they had assumed at the time was coke but later identified as heroin...but no journal. That could only mean the detective took something from the villa before Jeremie could bag and tag it.

Just like that, the progress that Herve’s criminal profile had brought the case evaporated.

“You took a piece of evidence from the crime scene!?” Jeremie’s voice was low, viperous, assaulting. The technician swiftly cut the space between them in half, forcing Odd backwards. “Are you mental!? Odd, what the hell!?”

He could already see the detective’s hackles rising, the knee-jerk defensiveness dragging up those walls that kept out any form of criticism.

_‘He’s a fucking child. A child with no common sense, never had to deal with real world consequences-’_

“Jeremie, stop. He knows what he did was wrong.” He hadn’t realized he’d been shouting at the blond detective until Ulrich stopped him, hand hovering over the technician’s raised arms. Odd’s mouth was twisted into a trembling scowl as he glared right back. “Arguing isn’t helping. We need to figure out how Delmas knows about Chardin’s journal.”

“So you’re not going to chastise your partner for stealing evidence from a crime scene? Are you serious!? God, the two of you, you fucking encourage each other’s bad behavior. You are going to fuck this case right up. Do you know what Delmas would do if he found out you stole case evidence? Case evidence that he’s hell bent on finding, might I add?”

His anger at the pair was a long time coming, an amalgamation of their toxic codependency and thoughtless, emotional, frivolity. If Ulrich said ‘jump’, Odd said ‘off of what’. If Odd needed help, Ulrich was ready to put his own well being on the line. They were attached at the hip by an unintentionally manipulative tether, stupidity transferring back and forth as though along an umbilical cord.

“Are you done talking, Einstein?” Odd’s face had gotten redder and redder the longer Jeremie had lectured, resulting in a comically tomato-like hue in between the dark brown of his leather jacket and the honey blond of his hair. “Because I’m done listening.”

The detective turned on his heel and stormed from the room, once again slamming the doors open and letting them bang shut behind him. 

“Well, that went well.” Ulrich muttered, wiping his hand down the front of his face. His eyes followed Odd’s path out the door before flicking back to Jeremie.

The technician could feel the bone-deep exhaustion seeping off of Ulrich, but he wasn’t willing to back down. Odd had stolen evidence. If that got out, their entire case would unravel, and the entire precinct would be under investigation. As such, instead of consoling the detective, Jeremie pointed towards the still-swinging door.

“Might want to put your dog on a leash before he pisses on the carpet again, Detective Stern.”

The detective’s half-hearted smile and huff of amusement weren’t lost on the technician as he watched Ulrich’s retreating form follow Odd’s through the doorway. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The late June heat had borne oppressively on Boulogne-Billancourt, turning what would have been a relaxing morning at Kadic News into an uncomfortable sauna. Even with the living room window propped open, the temperature put up an impressive fight, ultimately winning out and sending Yumi and Tamiya scrambling for cooler clothes and a reprieve from the enclosed space. The air outside was still boiling, but marginally fresher, as the women stepped off of the curb and followed the other commuters down the street.

For the first time since identifying Maïtena’s dead body, the reporter felt confident that things were starting to look up. A waitress, from the restaurant whose dumpster Maïtena had been left in, had emailed Yumi, claiming to have information that could help find the killer. She had asked to meet in a public place, something that Yumi and Tamiya were more than understanding of, and they had finally settled that the duo would patron the restaurant at 11:30 that morning to come into contact with her. 

“What information do you think she has?” Tamiya asked, flicking the striker wheel on her lighter twice before managing to produce a flame. Her lips moved around the filtered end of the cigarette, sentence staggered as she puffed and burnt the tobacco. “Why didn’t she go...to the police?”

Yumi had wondered the same thing after re-reading the email for at least the tenth time. How the waitress had gotten her email address, the reporter didn’t know, and a large part of her wasn’t keen on finding out. XANA’s care package had left a monumental, and highly traumatic, scar on her mental health. She was jumpy, paranoid, and constantly looking over her shoulder for a looming figure in a black balaclava. 

However, the waitress had asked to meet in a public place during the daytime, Yumi reasoned. It was something women were ingrained to ask for when meeting someone online, something that men had the privilege of not worrying about. If it was the same psychotic murderer who had sent her Chardin’s hands, he was going to great lengths to trick them into meeting, and putting himself in a lot of danger.

“I wouldn’t go to the police, either. I don’t trust them.” Yumi checked her phone for the address. 

“Uh-huh. Tell that to the steamy detective you’re letting in your pants.” 

Ulrich. Sweet, caring, doe-eyed, Ulrich. How one man could act so innocently, while the weight of immense trauma hung around him like a bad omen, Yumi didn’t know. It simultaneously startled and disarmed her how comfortable she felt in his presence.

“No one is getting in my pants, T. I mean, it’s been a year since I’ve gone on a date, let alone had sex, and it’s not exactly high on my priority list. Ulrich’s just a source, alright? Just an angle.”

At the very least he could never _just_ be sex. The man had ‘boyfriend material’ written all over his devastatingly handsome face, and Yumi knew that was something she just couldn’t give him. Besides, relationships meant honesty; using and abusing him for an article about the gross mishandling of Maïtena’s case - the case he was in charge of - wasn’t exactly a solid foundation to start on.

“Not everyone has to be an angle that you’re working, Yumi.” Tamiya turned her head away from the reporter to blow out a plume of smoke. “You’re allowed to like the guy, it’s not illegal. It certainly wouldn’t kill you, either.”

“Really? Because the other day you were complaining that I brought him up to see Kadic News, so I’m kind of getting mixed signals from you.”

Tamiya flicked the remnants of her cigarette into a nearby gutter, the embers fizzling out as soon as they touched a soggy collection of newspapers, leaves, and debris. “I just want you to be happy. The only time I’ve seen you genuinely content, recently, was the day you hung out with him. Every other day you mope around, throw yourself into your work, and look like shit.”

She knew she looked like shit. She did own a mirror, afterall, and grooming and hygiene were generally unavoidable. But how was she supposed to explain what plagued her in the quiet of her bedroom? What darkened the bags under her eyes? For the third night in a row she hadn’t slept, managing a ten minute doze every so often that was more of a lapse in consciousness than actual rest. It had triggered a migraine to kick off behind her forehead, one even a strong cup of coffee couldn’t fix.

How could she sleep, though, with visions of a masked killer - a glinting, bloody, blade gripped tightly in his left hand as he stood silently in her doorway - haunting her? In her dreams, the man had ten-foot-long, mangled, black wings; a hellish archangel of darkness. She had never been religious, not in the Judeo-Christian sense, but surely the image had to be some sort of trauma-induced hallucination and not a prophetic potentiality…right?

With the insanity of recent events, she had decided not to rule anything out. 

“There’s the restaurant, come on.” The women waited for a handful of cars to pass before swiftly moving across the busy street and ducking into the front of the restaurant.

Viande Boulogne was a small but highly acclaimed steakhouse in Boulogne-Billancourt, well-known for its pricey meats, red wines, and wealthy patrons. Yumi had never once been inside, despite her path to and from the métro bringing her right in front of Viande’s heady smells at dinnertime. At least twice a week she would stop, peering in the windows to see what the special was, every part of her fighting not to go in and order something to eat. It was just too expensive, she told herself, especially with the meager salary that she earned writing for Kadic. 

The inside was dimly-lit, but from their place at the doorway, the women could see the staff bustling about in preparation for the inevitable lunch rush. As a busboy carrying an impossibly large bucket of freshly washed dishes hurried by, Yumi noticed a young, blonde, woman eyeing them curiously from the entrance to the kitchen.

“Do you think that’s her?” Tamiya muttered, motioning towards the blonde.

The reporter pulled the editor back, moving them to the side of the door as a waiter filed past them. Not a minute later, the blonde stepped out of the doorway, glancing around until her eyes fell on Yumi and Tamiya. 

“Are you the reporter?” Her accent was thick, Baltic if Yumi had to chance a guess. Up close, under a thick layer of makeup, she could see that the woman was even younger than she’d originally thought. “You are, right? I’m Brynja. I contacted you.”

“Yeah, I’m the reporter. Yumi Ishiyama, I work for Kadic News. Do you have a last name, Brynja?” 

The raven-haired woman was already reaching for her pocket, fingers itching to begin scribbling the details of the potential conversation, when the waitress stopped her. 

“No, this is off-record. I don’t want my name attached to this, okay?”

Yumi and Tamiya glanced skeptically at each other before acquiescing to the blonde’s conditions.

“Fine. What’s this about?” 

Brynja led the women around the side of the building. 

In the absence of forensic equipment and bags of severed body parts, the alleyway felt dark and empty. A ring of crimson had been left behind near the second dumpster on the left, a vestige of Maïtena’s final resting place. 

Brynja searched her pockets before extracting a carton of cigarettes and a lighter. “I was told you were the person to talk to if we knew anything about Maïtena’s death.”

“Who told you that?” The reporter asked. “The same person who gave you my email?”

“A lot of the girls who work Boulevard de Clichy are talking about you, saying that you’re trying to find her killer.”

What was it with sex workers and gossip, anyways? Had Aelita said something? No, that didn’t seem like her style. Maybe it was Aelita’s roommate, Milly, who was telling hookers that Kadic News was investigating Maïtena’s death. Either way, the reporter didn’t like the idea that her name was being spread, like a dangerous game of telephone, around Boulogne-Billancourt’s prostitution circuit. The last thing she needed was a handful of sex workers finding her number and wanting updates on the case, or her contact information falling into the wrong hands...

“I thought you were a waitress. How do you know the girls who work in Clichy?” Yumi asked, motioning towards the restaurant behind them. 

“I am a waitress. During the day I work here, at night I do cam sessions.”

Camming. Aelita had mentioned it in passing one night, during an interview with Yumi for a previous article. The pink-haired woman seemed to have a disdain for it, as though getting naked online was somehow worse than actually fucking men for money. 

_‘It’s all servicing the patriarchal idea of sex, isn’t it?’_

She stopped her thoughts there, knowing how hypocritical she sounded whilst claiming to advocate for Boulogne-Billancourt’s most vulnerable women. Perhaps camming was the less dangerous alternative for Brynja, something she could do at night in the safety of her own home to make ends meet. 

Yumi still couldn’t shake the internalized feeling of disgust that came with hearing the sordid details. 

“Look, I’m sure you came here just wanting a story for your paper, but the rest of us want to bring Maïtena’s killer to justice.”

Yumi balked at the accusation. “You’re...you’re the one who asked us to meet you, Brynja. We didn’t have to come out and lis-”

“Were the two of you very close?” Tamiya interjected, pinching the space above Yumi’s elbow.

The reporter clacked her teeth together in frustration.

“No, not really. I heard she was a great person, though.” The blonde dropped the cigarette butt, stepping on it with the heel of her shoe. “I don’t have much time before work, and I need to tell you something. Don’t turn around, but the butcher across the stre- putain, I said don’t turn around.”

Yumi blushed, fixing her gaze on Brynja to keep herself from glancing backwards again. 

“As I was saying, the butcher across the street. The police spoke with him the other day, asking about the cameras on the front of his building. Viande doesn’t have any CCTV, but the butcher does. One camera covers his front door, and the other points right into this alleyway. I’m not sure if he gave the police any information, but they walked out empty handed and haven’t been back since.”

“Why would it point into this alleyway?” Tamiya asked.

The blonde scoffed. “The butcher is an old crook, every waiter on this road knows that. He uses horse meat as a filler in his products. We tried to expose him to the department of health by digging his trash out of the dumpster, so he installed cameras to deter us.” 

The smell of meat cooking in Viande’s kitchen suddenly didn’t seem so appetizing. 

“Don’t worry,” Brynja amended, smirking at the green tinge on Yumi’s cheeks, “we don’t buy from him anymore.”

 _‘Putain de merde.’_ As if Boulogne-Billancourt wasn’t upside down enough, now a corrupt butcher had been added to the mix. 

Assuming Brynja wasn’t misinformed, or just blatantly deceiving them, then the butcher had information the police hadn’t yet seen. It would give Yumi and Tamiya an advantage, an edge to break the story first. 

_‘Oh, and Aelita will probably want to see it, too…'_

Footsteps sounded behind the three women, turning the corner and stopping a few paces inside the alley. “Brynja, daj spokój, Anja cię szuka.”

The busboy from earlier motioned frustratedly for Brynja to hurry.

“W porządku!” She sighed, waiving the boy away. “I have to get back to work, now. I’m telling you, check out the butcher. There’s no way the police have the footage from his cameras.”

Yumi followed Brynja with her eyes as the waitress passed by and exited the alleyway. On the building across, just along the rooftop, were the two cameras Brynja had mentioned. One was pointing down towards the stoop, the other straight towards Tamiya and Yumi. 

“Do we trust her?” Tamiya asked, turning to face the reporter.

The waitress had more to lose than they did by meeting, possibly risking her job or even the wrath of a dirty butcher. She hadn’t been forced to give the information, she had come to them willingly. The least the women could do was check out the validity of the source. 

“No sweat off of our backs if we do, right?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was starting to regret just how quickly she had spoken in the alley. 

“I’m burning these clothes when we get back to the office.” The reporter muttered to Tamiya, earning herself a broad grin and a cheeky eye roll. 

“Yeah? Before or after a scalding hot bath?”

The smell was nauseating, sweet notes permeating any nose blindness that might have graced the women the longer they stood in the front half of the store. From behind a handful of customers, the pair could just see inside the back of the shop. Deep pink and red carcasses swung back and forth in time to the stagnated hum of the refrigerator, an unnatural blue hue backlighting them from yet another room off to the side. 

“Computer screen? Office, maybe?” Tamiya proffered, noticing Yumi’s gaze. She nodded.

“Next!” 

The butcher was elderly, wiry, and kyphotic in stature, with greying tufts peeking out from under an equally grey and fraying hairnet. Deep lines, cut into his face by years that Yumi guessed had been more than unkind, were deepened further by furrowed brows and a pointed look of impatience.

“Come on, I don’t have all day!” He barked again, jolting Yumi out of her hesitation. 

She stepped up to the counter, Tamiya hot on her heels.

"Désolée, Monsieur. I, uh, my name is Yumi, I work fo-”

“And I really don’t care. Now, what kind of meat do you want?”

His churlishness stopped the reporter in her tracks, her next sentence sticking somewhere between the back of her throat, the front of her teeth, and the roof of her mouth. Next to her, Tamiya bristled, glancing back at the unfazed customers behind them.

“Well, actually, we don’t want meat. We’re reporters for Kadic News. You see, we’re looking into the murder that happened-”

_Thwick!_

Behind the counter, the butcher ripped a stainless steel cleaver from the wood of a chopping board, a dull _whoop schwoop whoop_ following the blade as it wobbled back and forth in the man’s hand. 

“Reporters? Well, gosh, why didn’t you say! In that case: next customer!” 

Tamiya held out her hand to stop the customer behind them from moving forward, eyebrows raised and lips turned up in a menacing snarl. 

“Monsieur, please, we just thought you might have some information.” Yumi motioned vaguely to the back of his shop. “We know you have CCTV, did you catch anything the night the victim’s body was dumped?”

The butcher sighed. “Like I told the police, the cameras were off that night. Now, if you aren’t buying anything, step aside!”

“Please, Monsieur, a woman was murdered, she ha-”

“Yeah! A whore! I heard! Now move aside, putain!”

With no other choice, Yumi stepped off to the side, pulling Tamiya with her. The customer behind them, an older lady clutching an equally aged purse, cast the women a stern glare before sidling up to the counter to order. 

“What a fucking bastard. Why’d you let him talk to you like that?” Tamiya hissed, pulling her arm out of Yumi’s grasp and straightening out her blouse.

Yumi sighed.

Tamiya was the most obstinate, foul-mouthed, unyielding, woman the reporter had ever met. The streets of Paris weren’t ‘hard’ per se, but like every city they had their share of crass, belligerent, men whose language could make a sailor blush. The editor, to her credit, was right there, ready to give back as good as she got. 

_“Why do you even bother responding to them, T? It just eggs them on.”_

_“And being quiet just gives them satisfaction, makes them think you’re weak.”_

Whether it was her slight figure, the lack of an appendage between her legs, or her ethnicity, men always assumed that Yumi was weak. Their assumptions were misguided, almost as laughable as their underestimation of the strength of her kicks (thank you, years of Aikido) and the intensity of her resting bitch face. She, however, couldn’t care less. At the end of the day, their attention - and more importantly their perception of her - wasn’t as important as walking away from a confrontation unscathed. The butcher was no exception to the rule. 

_“You’re such a pacifist.”_

No. She was smart, calculating, unwilling to put either of them in danger unless the odds were right. 

“Yumi?” Tamiya asked, again.

_The Butcher is a crook. Everyone knows that._

“Actually, Monsieur, we’ll have the horse meat.”

His head swivelled around at a comical speed, matched only by how wide his eyes went at the words that left Yumi’s mouth. Deep down some part of her had hoped, prayed, that Brynja had been lying to them about the horse meat. The butcher’s reaction all but dashed those hopes, making her reconsider her reluctance to go vegan.

“So you’ll listen now, will you?” She asked, motioning towards the customer at the counter. “You’ll have a conversation with us?”

The elderly woman stepped back as Yumi and Tamiya stepped up to the counter.

“What do you want?” The butcher snarled.

“The video footage from the night before the body was found in that alley, or the next article I write will be about the filler you use in your meat products.”

The man let out a frustrated grunt. “I told you, the cameras were off.”

“Too damn convenient!” Tamiya laughed. “And unfortunate. Really didn’t want to write that article, did we, Yumes?”

She was hoping the butcher wasn’t willing to push his luck that much to get the women off of his back, to test their bluff as far as they had played it. When his silence held out longer than she was comfortable with, the reporter shrugged and motioned for Tamiya to follow her lead. 

“What do you think about this headline, T: ‘Local Butcher Caught Horsing Arou-”

“Fine! Fine, okay! One of you can come back and see the footage. That’s it! Okay?” He motioned for the other customers to wait, then looked expectantly at the women. “Which one of you?”

Yumi elbowed Tamiya. “Go, take a look.”

She waited another few moments, grimacing at the angry elderly woman next to her as she listened for any sounds coming from the back room.

“Yes, yes, hang on, I have to rewind to that day. Almost there...here we go.”

As soon as the hard ‘g’ sound had left the butcher’s mouth, Yumi let her entire body go limp. 

She’d seen it in at least fifty movies and hundreds of television shows, the protagonist suddenly dropping to the floor in a half-assed attempt at a distraction, one that garnered shock, panic, and sympathy from a handful of unwitting bystanders and disgruntled concern from the target of their scheme. 

They were getting that footage one way or another. 

Her body sagged to the right, down down down until she felt her hips and shoulders collide with the hard tile flooring. She allowed herself a second to half-roll onto her back before tilting her head, then jerking the core of her body in what she was sure, to the untrained eye, looked like a very terrifying seizure. 

“Oh god! Oh god, she’s having a fit!”

The elderly woman stumbled away, replaced by a younger man who was going straight for his wallet.

_‘Oh christ, don’t stick that in my mouth, haven’t any of you had CPR training?’_

One set of hurried footsteps, heavy and clobbering, came from the back. “Jesus Christ, someone call an ambulance!”

It was the butcher. Thank god, Tamiya had caught on to the ruse.

Yumi tilted her head to the left as covertly as she could, eyeing the doorway to the office from her place on the floor. _‘Come on, T, come on…’_

“Should...should we hold her down!? Are you calling an ambulance!?”

The editor appeared in the doorway to the office, hand stuffing something into her pocket as she dodged the swinging carcasses of meat on her way back to the shop front.

“She’s okay! She’s alright! Don’t call anyone, this happens sometimes!” Tamiya dropped down, grabbing Yumi by the collar of her shirt and hoisting her up. “I just need to get her home, that’s all. Thanks for the help!”

Yumi feigned near unconsciousness, allowing the editor to drag her out of the shop and a handful of storefronts down before standing up straight and pushing away. Immediately, the flat of Tamiya’s hand came to the back of the reporter’s head with a sharp _snap_.

“What the hell were you thinking, Ishiyama!?”

She massaged the back of her head, then moved her hands to her shoulder and hip, inspecting the slowly reddening skin there. “Ouch, Tamiya, that fucking hurt. God, that’s gonna bruise…”

“A fake seizure? Really!? What if someone there actually knew what a seizure looked like, huh? What, then, smartass?”

She shrugged off Tamiya’s words. “It was fine. I’ve seen plenty of movies. It’s like method acting, but for the journalism world. Did you get the footage or not?”

Tamiya rolled her eyes. In the editor’s hand, held up so the reporter could see it, was a small, black, memory card. “Yes, you crazy bitch, I got the footage.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The only phrase Odd could use to describe his self hatred was ‘all-consuming’. There was never anything casual about fixating on one’s mistakes. It was always all-or-nothing, black or white, at a break-neck pace and no stops in between. Every time he tried to move the memory of the morning’s clusterfuck to the back of his mind, it came back ten times worse and tightened his chest until he couldn’t breathe. It probably didn’t help that he’d added alcohol to the mix, downing two beers as soon as he’d stumbled from his shower.

He had royally fucked up, this time, and he wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to get out of it.

Like any child with a bad note on their report card, he’d dragged his feet, taking his sweet time dropping off Emily and Julie at the hospital, then prolonging the inevitable fallout by picking up coffee and sandwiches for himself and Ulrich. His partner was always a lot less angry if he had something in his stomach. 

Parking the cruiser in the precinct parking garage and heading into the station had taken every ounce of willpower that the man had. He had expected yelling, screaming, possibly even the front of Ulrich’s knuckles against his jaw...

_“What the hell happened? Elisabeth told me Duncan got off on probation, that they were retrying him at a later date…?”_

For whatever unfathomable reason, she hadn’t told Ulrich about Odd’s outburst or the ensuing conversation. Not that he would have blamed her if she had. Afterall, he’d left her in the municipal court hallway with tears in her eyes and a voice thick with hurt.

God, why had he been such a dick? None of what he said was warranted, let alone true. She definitely wasn’t the precinct’s used-up whore, and who was he to judge her friendship with Ulrich, anyways? Elisabeth Delmas was admirable in almost every sense of the word, even if she was a headstrong hardass who refused to sugarcoat anything she said. Something about Duncan’s hands around her throat had changed the way he looked at her...or perhaps just brought it to the forefront of his mind. The action had made him so angry, enough to lose control and piledrive the bastard into the interrogation room wall, but why? Why had it pissed him off so much? Why did the thought of her getting hurt elicit such a primeval reaction in him?

_“I protected her! That’s my job! And you know what, I’d hit him again!”_

That was the honest truth, too. He wouldn’t have done anything differently to get that alt-right pervert off of her in a timely fashion. Well, maybe he would've thrown him into the wall a bit harder.

_“Are you okay? Let me see…”_

He hadn’t expected her face to be so delicate in his hand, or for goosebumps to prickle up on her neck and chest as he’d swiped his thumb, back and forth, along her jawline. Was she really that much shorter than him? He had a good four inches on her, enough to make her tilt her head back slightly to look up at him. Enough that he would have to duck his head down if he wanted to press his lips against hers, or bruise her neck with his teeth...

Bruises...neck...the thin slice across her throat from the chain connecting Duncan’s handcuffs...the municipal court hallway...her refusing to look him in the eyes. 

That was enough to kill his slowly developing problem downstairs. 

_‘Stay on task, Della Robbia.’_ He chastised himself.

Part of Odd wished he had stayed in the station to help Jeremie and Ulrich once again sort through Gustave Chardin’s personal effects. He had brought the journal with him to work anyways, and they could have hunted for the elusive Club Lyoko together. Instead, after hours of Ulrich’s incessant questioning, akin to a dog with a goddamn bone, he had excused himself from the desk under the guise of a migraine and joined a handful of other officers in heading home. His partner had known, like he always knew, that the excuse was horseshit. Notwithstanding the neutral face and passive eyebrows, Ulrich’s eyes had bored into his own with an uncomfortable amount of judgement before the blond left. 

A year of living and working together had taught the man to take Ulrich’s ‘we’ll talk about this later’ stare seriously.

With a frustrated sigh, the detective tossed Chardin’s journal onto the kitchen table in front of him, narrowly avoiding knocking the half empty beer bottle onto his open laptop. It wasn’t like he was getting anywhere with research, anyways. Chardin had been careful in crafting a newsworthy persona that painted him as positively as possible. Club Lyoko had to be something bad if the man had gone to such great lengths to keep his name untied to it.

 _‘Maybe you’re just a shitty detective. Ever think of that?’_ The thought was unbidden, intrusive, causing the detective to yank on his blond strands in frustration. He was all at once too buzzed and too exhausted to redirect his thoughts into something positive. 

He was starting to wonder just how snugly he could fit the barrel of his service pistol underneath his jaw.

 _‘You know you’re supposed to call Ulrich when these thoughts start up again. You’re not supposed to be alone.’_ It wasn’t worth it, was it? To initiate the ‘Suicide Mitigation Plan’ they’d developed early into Odd’s PTSD development? To drag his partner all the way home just because of some buzzed, intrusive thoughts?

Before he could stop himself, his hand shot out to grab his phone, unlocking it and pulling up Ulrich’s contact photo. 

**[Odd D. 7:45 PM] (Unsent:) Can you come home ?**

He quickly deleted the message before retyping. 

**[Odd D. 7:45 PM] (Unsent:) I need you home right now.**

Then deleted that one, too.

**[Odd D. 7:46 PM] (Unsent:) Not feeling good...don’t think I should be alone rig-**

_Tap Tap Tap_

As his eyes found the door, making sure the locks were in place, his hand found the service pistol and pulled it from the holster. Slowly, but surely, he stepped towards the front door, leaning down to look through the peep-hole.

“Christ sake.” 

Elisabeth. Even through the glass of the peep-hole, Odd could tell she was looking worse for wear.

He tossed the gun onto the kitchen table before returning to the door and pulling it open. Up close, and without her usual layer of makeup, Elisabeth looked younger and more innocent than Odd had ever seen her. 

“I...Ulrich’s not here. He’s still-”

“At the station, I know.” The prosecutor finished, eyes fixed somewhere above his brow bone instead of meeting his gaze. “I came here to talk to you, actually. Can I come in?”

His mind reeled, trying to find her angle in this. She was probably going to demand an explanation of him, force him to apologize and get him comfortable before she inevitably tattled to Ulrich about his fuck-up that morning in court. Ulrich, of course, would take her side. She was the lady, afterall, the brunet’s sweet, little, never-do-wrong, lamb. His favorite.

 _‘You called her a whore, Odd. She reserves the right to tell her best friend about it.’_

“Odd?” 

She was still standing there, expectant. Why did her eyes look so different without all that makeup? Bigger, wetter, and sadder than usual, watching him curiously…

He stepped aside, allowing her in, before closing and locking the door. 

Her immediate beeline for the kitchen reminded him of the morning, not too long ago, when she had stormed in after kickboxing, strands of hair slowly slipping from her bun as she searched their fridge. Somehow, the Elisabeth in front of him now was miles different from the one who had stolen his sports drink and called him names.

“Doing research?” Elisabeth’s voice broke his thoughts, forcing him to look at her. She was pointing towards the pile of work surrounding his laptop.

“Yeah. Chardin’s murder.”

They’d never been good at small talk.

Odd opened and closed his mouth like a fish. He wanted to tell her, apologize to her, beg her to understand that everything - anything - he had said in the hallway outside of the courtroom had been a defense mechanism born of fear. Fear of her, fear of what Duncan’s interrogation and his ensuing reaction meant, fear of letting someone else in, fear of her seeing just how scared he really was…

“I’m not a whore.”

Odd’s brain stopped, and for the first time since she had walked in, he met her gaze. “What?”

“This morning. You called me a whore. After court let out, you called me a whore.”

“Yeah, I...yeah, I did.” He really wanted her to stop saying that word. “Elisabeth, look-”

“I’m not. I’m not a whore. I get that you were upset about what Magali brought up at the trial. I would be, too, that shit was awful, but you can’t...you took that out on me. I didn’t deserve that. I know I didn’t deserve that. And yes, maybe I could have been nicer to you, but-”

“Elisabeth, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“-Odd, don’t talk over me. You...wait, did you just say you’re sorry?”

A small chuckle left him, unbidden, and he shook his head at Elisabeth’s deeply furrowed eyebrows to reassure her he wasn’t laughing at her expense. “Yes, I said I was sorry. I _am_ sorry.”

He hated the way she was looking at him - _really_ looking at him, seeing past whatever crap façade he’d placed as a buffer between them - with her usual pithy honesty that was all at once infuriating but undeniably endearing. It made him want to step closer. 

“You’re right. You didn’t deserve what I said to you.”

“And you’re not just saying that to make sure I don’t run and tell Ulrich?” She countered, cheeks dimpling. 

The detective let out a heavy sigh. “I wouldn’t blame you if you still did. Even if I would prefer you didn’t.”

The air around them felt calmer, less tense than it had when she’d walked in the room. Their strained relationship wasn’t fixed, nearly a year of competition as Ulrich’s best friends ensured that much, but for the moment Odd felt a bizarre sense of peace as he watched the prosecutor from the doorway to the kitchen. 

Elisabeth leaned back against the table, turning her head to look at the array of papers behind her. “You know, I never pegged you for a diary kind of guy.”

“Diary?” 

Odd’s heart sank into his stomach as the word left his mouth. Diary. Out of one frying pan and into a vat of searing hot oil. Gustave Chardin’s journal was resting just inches away from her, a folded coffee receipt slid in between the pages that mentioned Club Lyoko, a cocaine shipment, and Jean Pierre Delmas. He wasn’t supposed to have the journal, let alone know that her father’s name was in the journal. 

Somehow, he had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to know that either.

“Oh, no, it’s not a diary. More like a log book...dates...grocery lists…” _Grocery lists?_ The detective felt a pang of guilt at giving her only half of the truth, especially after she’d confronted him about his slew of hurtful lies from that morning. 

Her hand reached back for the journal, fingers wrapping around the black, leather clasp and slowly pulling it towards her. 

_‘Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit…’_ Why had he opened the goddamn door? Why had he let her in? This whole conversation could have waited until he was less inebriated, she was less emotionally raw, and that godforsaken journal was less out in the open. He lunged forward, hand dropping none too gently onto hers.

“Private...grocery lists.”

He hadn’t realized just how far back Elisabeth had leaned to paw at the diary, just how far forward that had forced him in order to still her hand. The prosecutor twisted, tilting her head upwards to look at him, and the movement brought her lips dangerously close to his chin.

“Private grocery lists? Sounds...vaguely sexual.”

God, her skin was warm. He could feel the heat radiating under her shirt where his midsection was pressed against hers. 

_‘Stop it! She didn’t come here to be objectified.’_

He needed to step away from her. 

_‘So step away, then, pervert.’_

Easier said than done. 

“Are you okay? I won’t touch your diary if you don’t want me to.” A flirtatious lilt, laced with amusement at the detective’s predicament, had replaced the timidity in her voice from earlier. Odd liked the way the confidence sounded, much more. 

Without conscious thought, his hand left hers, slowly sliding up her arm and coming to rest on the left side of her neck. The bruises from Duncan’s interrogation were almost completely faded, leaving behind soft, ivory skin that flushed red under his touch.

“You know...I didn’t like seeing Duncan’s hands around your throat.” Odd muttered.

Elisabeth pulled her own hand away from Gustave’s journal. “It’s...it’s fine. I’m fine. The bruises weren’t even that bad, the cut didn’t scar, nothing to worry about, rig-”

Frankly, Odd mused, the prosecutor had too much to say at such an inopportune moment. A brief noise of protest escaped her as he leaned downwards, catching her lips with his own and pushing her further back against the kitchen table. His brain was on autopilot, half focused on undressing the woman under him while trying to decide if pulling her into the bedroom was a better option than fucking her on the kitchen table. 

_‘As long as she’s away from that stupid fucking journal…’_

“Ouch, what the hell?”

Her hand had found the back of his neck, pinching hard to get his attention, and he quickly realized his hands had stilled midway through unbuttoning her shirt. “Why are you just staring, Della Robbia? Come on, bedroom.” 

The detective allowed her to pull him out of the kitchen and into his room. “You know, I like a strong female lead.”

She turned, undoing the rest of her buttons and backing towards the bed. “Shut up and shut the fucking door.”

He did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who has a Bachelor's Degree now? That's right, me, your favorite fanfic author. 
> 
> I am _so_ beyond sorry for how long this chapter has taken. I promise it wasn't abandoned, simply just being worked on. A lot has happened since I last updated and...let's just say it's been a lot. 
> 
> I am back, though!
> 
> The biggest of thank you's to Epsilon, who is still the best beta reader and has stuck with me during that two and a half month hiatus. Also, a huge shout out to Makalyta on tumblr who made a second fan art (I forgot to mention that last time) and SHIPPED IT TO ME all the way from Italy and whom I now consider a very close friend. Who knew me writing a fanfic would find me some friends???
> 
> Alright, as usual, comment down below. See you all on chapter 12, coming soon...much sooner than chapter 11 did.


	12. The Wicked and The Divine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning:
> 
> 1\. Broken bones, blood  
> 2\. Sexual content  
> 3\. Vulgar language and dialogue  
> 4\. Violence against women, violence against sex workers

_“You mentioned the word darkness just now when talking about yourself. Can you elaborate on that, Ulrich?”_

At the very least, Ulrich had fractured his hand. He’d felt it the moment it happened; the fifth metacarpal giving way as his knuckles struck the cement wall of the precinct gym. It was coupled with deep slits in the flesh that covered his hands, causing blood to run down and dry around his fingernails. He clutched the swelling appendage tightly to his chest in an attempt to avoid jarring his arm even further. 

There was no way he could hide this from Odd or Elisabeth, that much was certain. 

_“I don’t know, just...something dark. Like there’s something...bad inside of me. Just this darkness.”_

_“Does this darkness scare you?”_

Boulevard de Clichy was alive; bright, pulsating, and sensuous. All of Boulogne-Billancourt seemed to be relishing the cold front that had clung to the coattails of a fleeting midday rainstorm. Parisians filled the streets around him and filtered through nearby clubs, restaurants, or shops, barely giving the detective a second glance as he hunched further into his jacket and ventured on.

_“I guess, sometimes. Sometimes it’s like that’s all there is.”_

Despite the two degree drop it was still too hot for the nighttime darkness that covered the detective like a shroud. The hoodie Ulrich had borrowed from the precinct’s lost-and-found was only adding to the problem, causing sweat to pool between his shoulder blades and down the back of his neck. It was itchy and hot underneath the thick fabric, but he couldn’t risk being recognized in this part of town.

Which meant the hoodie was staying on, no matter how uncomfortable it became.

_“Is this feeling of darkness why you came in today?”_

_“I came in because Elisab- my friend thought it would be a good idea.” He wetted his lips._

_The psychologist watched him, seeing through the blank expression that Ulrich was painstakingly keeping on his face. “You have autonomy, Ulrich. You could have said no to coming in today. So, what made you say yes?”_

_Fuck, she was good. What the hell was he supposed to tell her, though? ‘The precinct psychiatrist will take me off duty if I’m honest with him so I came a ways away from Boulogne-Billancourt to tell you about the darkness that’s in me because you can’t suspend me from my job’?_

_Darkness. That was what he called the black, boiling sludge that covered his insides and soaked every organ, threatening to fill his lungs, threatening to choke him._

_Frankly, he mused, he’d have better luck working it out with his punching bag._

_“Why did your friend think it was a good idea for you to come see me?”_

_Ulrich sighed deeply, weighing the pros and cons of lying to the woman across from him, before rubbing a hand down his face._

_“I...I sort of freaked out while we were having sex.”_

_“This friend is your romantic partner, then?” The psychologist prompted._

_“No. I mean, sort of? We went on a few dates, but we’re not dating. We occasionally have sex, but not since I...we haven’t since…”_

_“Since you freaked out. Do you want to talk about why you freaked out?”_

_Ulrich was thankful for the repetitive ticking of the clock on the wall and the occasional patter of footsteps outside the office door. It filled the uncomfortable silence as he tried to pick his next words carefully. One look at the psychologist, at the wrinkles of concern on her forehead, sent his faux ambivalence right out the window._

_Her empathy, however, did not make talking about his sex life any less awkward._

_“We were...we were, you know, we were-”_

_“Having sex.”_

_“Yeah, and she was laying there and...and the sex was fine, you know, everything was great, but...I looked at her face, she was under me and I looked at her, and I just…” He paused and sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady his shaking hands and voice. “I got this image in my head of me hurting her. Really hurting her. Not just some BDSM fantasy or some crap. Bleeding an-and broken. And I’m imagining this shit, and this whole time Elisabeth...I mean, relationships, friendships, sex, it’s all trust, right? I’m imagining hurting her, and she’s under me trusting me with intimacy. She’s trusting me not to hurt her and in my head I’m doing the exact opposite of that.”_

_The psychologist was scribbling notes, her head tilted pensively to the side. After a few beats of silence she glanced up at him. “What happened after that?”_

_His cheeks reddened. “Well, I stopped...I, you know, I pulled out and...and I went into my bathroom. She didn’t understand what was going on...I mean, neither did I really. She was scared. I was fucking losing it. I turned on the cold water and I sat in my bathtub and I was just...I was freaking out, panicking, and she didn’t understand what was going on.”_

_“Did you tell her what you had been imagining?”_

_He did, eventually. After the cold water had him shivering and Elisabeth threatened to call Odd. She sat him down on the closed toilet lid, handed him a full double shot glass (he couldn’t remember what was in it, but it made his limbs feel warm), and waited until he was able to speak. In her usual, no-nonsense tone she had insisted - emphatically - that there was nothing wrong with him. It was just ‘intrusive thoughts’, the effects of a stressful job._

_“...Elisabeth kept saying I was probably stressed out from work. My precinct partner and I are working towards being detectives. She thinks I’m worried about that or something.”_

_The psychologist watched him, her eyes unreadable. It caused Ulrich to shift uncomfortably under her gaze._

_“Well, what do you think, Ulrich? Do you think you were stressed at the time?”_

He didn’t, and he never went back for a second appointment. Ulrich was sure the darkness had been left behind in Germany, that it was just a side effect of his father’s superiority complex and his mother’s alcoholism. So sure, in fact, that he had applied to the precinct in Boulogne-Billancourt, sold his motorcycle for the cash, and cut ties with the man who made his childhood a living hell. All in an attempt to outrun something that was festering inside him the entire time. 

What a waste.

_Buzz Buzz!_

Ulrich startled and reached backwards across his body with his left hand, struggling to pull his cellphone from the right rear pocket. 

**[Odd D. 11:56 PM] Everything ok ? You’ve been at the station all night.**

**[Ulrich S. 11:56 PM] Nah finished @ 10. J H and I r getting drinks. U ok ?**

Ulrich’s chest tightened at the lie.

**[Odd D. 11:57 PM] Herve cutting loose ? Must have been a rough study session.**

**[Odd D. 11:57 PM] Je suis en forme, mum, quit asking ! ;P**

_‘At least I’m not the only one who’s full of shit.’_

Something had shifted between the two detectives recently, stretching their emotional tether to the breaking point. It wasn’t just the lying, though it did worry Ulrich how good they’d become at that, but the constant bickering, too. 

Every little thing seemed to set the brunet off, recently; misplaced kitchen utensils, untimely laundry, the way Odd put _at least_ five sugars in his morning coffee. It all raised his blood pressure and made his hands itch for violence. 

As a result, Ulrich had been spending more of his free time at the precinct gym. The image of his fist hitting their kitchen wall, just seconds from breaking Odd’s nose, was seared into his mind like a hot brand against skin. In that split second, with his partner nagging him about his behavior, Ulrich had yearned to hit Odd. Wanted so badly to feel the crunch of cartilage under his fist, the way he had during the break room brawl with Nicolas.

The darkness was growing stronger, pulling Ulrich down further into himself until he felt like he was drowning. Perhaps rebuffing his partner’s countless offers to talk was a mistake. After all, if he opened up, he didn’t need to carry the burden of darkness alone.

If he opened up, he probably wouldn’t be turning down a back alley on Boulevard de Clichy, coming to a stop in front of the sleaziest and most illegal brothel in Paris. 

A glance around revealed the remnants of a squatter’s den, with two threadbare sleeping bags rolled up against a wall, a trash bin with scorch marks around the inside, and a handful of used needles that the detective narrowly avoided stepping on as he moved towards the door. ‘The Replika’ was spray-painted on the dark steel, worn down by the elements but still visible against the grey background.

 _‘Jesus Christ.’_ If he had thought the used needles outside were bad, stepping over the threshold was worse.

The building was old, but the peeling wallpaper and grungy carpet were the least of its problems. Water stains marred the ceiling, turning large areas of white into a sickly shade of brown as trails of black mold lined the edges of each wet spot. The crown moulding was covered in a mixture of thick dust and cobwebs, more of the black mold beginning to sprout up where excess water had dripped down the walls. Ulrich took a step forward and nearly yelped as his boot sent a group of cockroaches scuttling down the hallway. 

“Putain…”

“Don’t worry, the rooms are much cleaner.”

The detective startled and glanced around for the source of the voice. A few paces in front of him, nestled into the wall, was a large open window that revealed a small office. Inside, a man - Roman, if his shoddy name tag was anything to go off of - was sitting at a chair with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. 

The man’s lips peeled back around the cigarette to reveal a hole full of decay, the remaining teeth fading from sickly yellow to necrotic brown. Dirt had accumulated along his neck, inside the crooks of his arms, and over his chest, and was now sticking to the layer of visible sweat that covered the rest of his exposed body. 

Ulrich vaguely wondered if the state of the building was rubbing off on the man - or the other way around - as he eyed the sweat-stained wife-beater that hung rather limply over his frame. 

“You must be Roman.” Ulrich announced, nodding his head towards the name tag.

A guffaw left Roman’s chest, his smile widening and threatening to dislodge the precariously placed cigarette. “The man can read. Give him an award.”

 _‘Prick. Why the fuck does a pimp need a name tag, anyways?’_ Ulrich stayed silent. 

“I know all the regulars. You’ve never been here, have you?”

“Ah...no, I haven’t.” 

And if he had any say in the matter, Ulrich still wouldn’t have been there. 

Everyone they had interviewed about Maïtena’s death had an agenda. Aelita was far too close to the victim to be candid and, as a result, had painted her in a rose-tinted light. Yes, Maïtena had a child. Yes, she was some sort of prostitute den mother. Yes, she had stopped hooking to better herself and her daughter’s quality of life. But, so what?

All of the information Aelita had given them was good to know, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the _darkness_ that Ulrich was searching for. If she was as squeaky clean at the time of her death as they said she was, then why was her body brutally dismembered? Maïtena had been involved in something bad, something _dark_. 

Then there was Yumi; beautiful, smart, and snarky in a way that stung but didn’t maim. She had an alibi, and little to no knowledge of Maïtena’s daily whereabouts, but the information they gleaned from her was invaluable nonetheless...

 _‘Bullshit. Are your intentions strictly work related?’_

Okay, so maybe he had selfish reasons for keeping her close to the case. She was intriguing, and definitely a handful if her little stunt at the range meant anything. It didn’t matter if it was a battle of wits or fists, she was strong enough to hold her own. Hell, if he hadn’t been fast enough, she would have landed a few good punches during their sparring date. 

_‘Not a date, she just wanted to interview you for an article.’_

God, her presence made his blood run hot. 

But she, too, had an agenda. Ulrich was under no false impression that her interest in him was anything but journalism related. He was a source of information, the next big break in the news cycle, and she was milking that for all it was worth.

As hypocritical as it was, standing in a brothel and lying to his partner about his location, Ulrich needed someone honest. He needed someone who had no reason to lie to him, with no loyalties to anyone involved. Someone whose palm he could grease to jumpstart their case. 

“Well, mystery man. Will it be business or pleasure?” 

Bubble. Simmer. Boil. Ulrich hated the way those words curled off of Roman’s tongue, thick and slimy. The detective bit down hard on the inside of his cheek until he could taste copper. “How much?”

“€200.”

Ulrich reached back - his left rear pocket this time - and pulled out his wallet. For a moment he struggled, one-handed, to get the money out, but eventually pulled his right hand from his hoodie pocket to help.

Roman eyed Ulrich’s hands curiously. “That looks painful.”

“Don’t worry about it. Here.” The money barely touched the counter before Roman’s filthy hand shot out, snagging the bills and tucking them greedily into the box next to him. 

“Alright, let’s see…” The wheels on his chair squeaked as he rolled backwards to the wall, casting Ulrich a long look before turning to the keys that hung behind him. “Hmm...heh, you know what, I think you’ll like _her_.”

Key number nine was pulled deftly from one of the lower pegs before Roman rolled back towards the desk. 

“She’s feisty, she’s got an attitude. Which brings me to my set of rules for the brothel.”

“Right, your brothel has rules.” Ulrich deadpanned.

“No leaving marks on the girls. No hickies, no bruises, no scratches, no matter how much they get on your nerves. Don’t supply any of the girls with drugs. Some of them are junkies, but that’s on their own time. I don’t allow them to shoot up on the premises.” Roman stamped out the cigarette on the top of the desk. “Lastly, you wear a condom. Non-negotiable. I don’t want to be short a girl if she has to get an abortion, and I’m sure you don’t want to find out if your whore-of-the-night has syphilis.”

The rules ran circles in Ulrich’s mind as he took the stairs to the second level. It was disturbing to him that Roman - that any man - had this much power over these women. Granted, the rules were a lot less severe than he had expected, but it was the principle of it that really picked at the knots in the detective’s brain. In a vastly different situation, five-hundred miles away and a little over a year prior, Ulrich had felt the same level of trapped he was sure the women working here felt now. Only, instead of Roman it was Mikhael Stern, and instead of prostitution it was every life choice the detective had made from the day he turned sixteen. 

Somewhere deep inside the darkness rustled, awakened by the mere mention of his father. He quickly swallowed it down.

The second floor was marginally cleaner than the first. There were fewer water stains on the ceiling and someone had made a half-hearted attempt to clean off the dust and cobwebs. If it wasn’t for the muffled moans and creaking bed springs that seeped through the thin walls, it could easily have been mistaken for a cheap motel. New - new _ish_ \- navy blue carpet and creme colored wallpaper made the hallway look innocuous, while fifteen freshly-painted, white doors lined the walls between Ulrich and the next set of stairs. Each one was adorned with a small, gold placard that had a tiny number hand-painted in curly script. 

_‘Okay...number nine...number nine...number…’_

He rapped on the door, glancing up and down the hall, before it swung open.

“Yes?” 

Her petite frame and long black hair made Ulrich do a double take. At a glance, the woman in front of the detective looked like Elisabeth, the expectant scowl on her face almost cementing the image. It was the smaller details - brown eyes instead of blue, a heavy smear of make-up - that allowed him to steady his heartbeat. 

_‘It’s not her. It’s okay. You’re okay.’_

Ulrich held up the key and the woman stepped aside, allowing him in. It was a small comfort that Roman hadn’t been lying about the rooms. Besides the queen sized bed pushed against the far wall, and a bedside table with a lit lamp, the space was sparse. A TV stand sat opposite the bed with an ancient-looking landline resting atop it, a small, leather-studded couch took up the corner, and a door across the room opened up into a fully-furnished, if outdated, bathroom. There were no water stains on the ceiling, minimal cobwebs and dust, and the wallpaper seemed to be permanently fixed to the walls.

“Did you pay for one hour or two?” A thick Turkish accent pulled the detective from his inspection, forcing his attention back to her. Her thin, nearly-see-through robe did nothing to cover her bare breasts, and Ulrich found himself thanking whatever higher power there was that she was still wearing underwear. His eyes rested just to the left of her ear, face heating up in embarrassment.

“I...don’t really know. If €200 is two hours, then yes.”

She nodded, motioning for him to sit on the bed. He hesitantly obliged. 

“You’re very handsome. Why are you so embarrassed? Plenty of men come to see me, you know.” She crouched down, maneuvering herself between his legs. “You want to tell me your name?”

The detective brushed her wandering hand away. His entire body was tense, uncomfortable, wound tighter than a rubber band ball. 

“You can make up a name, if you want.”

“Okay, um, I actually don’t want...I’m not here for sex.”

Ulrich nearly sighed in relief when she leaned away, until she peeled her robe backwards off of her shoulders to reveal her bare chest. 

“That’s okay. There are plenty of other things I can do besides sex.” She said. “I’ve been told I am very, very, good with my mouth.”

She was persistent, he’d admit that much. To a more enthused client she would have been a wet dream - slim, long dark hair, nice breasts - but Ulrich wasn’t enthused. In fact, he was the opposite of enthused: exceptionally uncomfortable and not at all enjoying the unwelcome touch of someone he had never met.

Bare fingertips brushed cold against his abdomen, causing the detective to realize she had reached under his clothes. They trailed along the hem of his jeans and inched closer to his hips, moving down to his belt and…

Her hand stilled, still resting underneath the hoodie and shirt. For a moment the pair watched each other, her eyes widening in shock while his eyes remained steady. In one swift motion, she yanked the jacket up, forcing Ulrich to fall back on his right arm and hiss as the movement jarred his hand. His badge and service weapon, well-hidden under the unshapeliness of his clothes, were now out in the open and casting a dull glint under the lamp light. 

“You bastard!” The prostitute snarled, jumping up from her position on the floor. “You’re a fucking cop!?”

“Uh...fuck.” Ulrich swore, attempting to get his bearings as she began to pace. He had planned to float that piece of information a lot softer. “Yes, yeah I am. Look, I’m he-”

She spun around, reaching for the landline. “I’m calling Roman. A fucking sting operation, of course, I should have known.” 

Frustration bubbled up in Ulrich’s stomach. She wasn’t _listening_ , all he wanted her to do was _listen_. Before he could think about it, he was on his feet and putting himself between her and the number pad. 

“Stop! Please, can you just listen to me?” Ulrich begged. 

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he felt a strange sense of pride in the woman as her eyes caught sight of his injured hand and she formulated a path of escape. For someone so much smaller than him, her sudden grip on his fingers was excruciating, sending white-hot stabs of pain up his arm and into his shoulder. The detective cried out, jerking his hand back, before grabbing the woman by her arms and shoving her backwards onto the bed. He pinned her wrists with his left hand and her legs with his knees, pressing down hard to keep her still.

“Fucker! Get off of me!” She spat at him, the offending fluid hitting him in the face as she started thrashing. “What the hell are you doing!? You’re hurting me!”

_“What are you doing? Ulrich? Let go of my wrist.”_

_Elisabeth was still smiling. He could see it in between the flashes of imagery in his brain, her face beaten into a bloody pulp and her eyes beginning to swell shut. There were patches of blue in there as well, making a jarring appearance in the sparse, flesh-colored spots._

_Inherently Ulrich knew he had done this, but he couldn’t remember it...couldn’t look away from her damaged visage long enough to see how badly he had torn his knuckles apart. Had he enjoyed it? He definitely wasn’t enjoying it, now. His chest was tight with panic and he couldn’t catch his breath. Was this what Odd felt like, during his episodes?_

_‘Breathe. Breathe. Breathe!’_

_“Ulrich, that hurts!”_

_In a second he was off of her, staggering away from the bed, the back of his bare thighs hitting the desk behind him. Gone was the blood and bruising, replaced by Elisabeth’s look of wide-eyed concern as she sat up and dragged the sheet to cover her bare body._

“Just listen to me, okay? Listen! I’m not here to bust you, this isn’t a sting, okay?”

Her movements slowed, confusion and anger written all over her face. “Well if you think I am still going to blow you after this, you’re dead wrong.”

Ulrich huffed in amusement. 

“If I let go of you, will you promise not to call Roman?” As an afterthought he added, “And will you promise not to grab my hand like that again? That fucking hurt.”

After a moment, and her begrudging acquiescence, Ulrich stepped away. As she put her robe back on and crossed her arms protectively over her chest, the detective resignedly lowered himself onto the chair in the corner. 

“I’m Ulrich. What’s your name?”

“I’m not going to tell you anything if I feel you are a threat to me.”

Fair point. “What would make me less of a threat to you, then?”

She seemed to mull the question over, her eyes never leaving his form and her body turning to the side to make herself a smaller target. “Give me your badge and gun. I want them on the TV stand where I can see them.”

Slowly, painfully, with his hands splayed as obviously as he could, Ulrich unclipped his gun holster and precinct badge from his belt, handing them gingerly to the woman in front of him. She pinched the holster with three fingers in a comical display of uncertainty, then dropped both the gun and the badge onto the wooden surface. The detective was glad that the safety was still on. 

“Azra.” She was looking at him curiously. “My name is Azra.”

Azra. The name was unique, and like Ulrich, she clearly wasn’t French.

“What does it mean?” The detective asked.

“In Arabic it means pure, chaste, or...or virgin.” The corners of Azra’s mouth twitched at Ulrich’s amused chuckle. “And what does your name mean, kraut? Hmm?”

The insult aimed at his German accent, and Azra’s deepening scowl, renewed another round of laughter in the detective. She was feisty, just as Roman had said, and her personality was a strange mixture of Elisabeth, Yumi, and Aelita’s best and worst traits combined. They were all strong, audacious, women, unflinching in the face of their fears and steadfast in their convictions. 

It surprised him. 

If he really thought about it, his surprise at the strength of femininity was his father’s fault. The man had verbally and emotionally beaten down an already weak-willed, alcohol-dependent, Johanna Stern through years and years of marriage. So much so, in fact, that her relief was palpable when Mikhael Stern deemed his son old enough to receive the brunt of his frustrations. Johanna would cower and flee to her reading room when the yelling began, finding solace in the stash of booze she kept tucked away. 

The same stash of booze that diffused the motherly responsibilities she was so apt at ignoring. 

Really, who was he trying to kid? Johanna Stern didn’t have maternal instincts to ignore.

“I’m not here for sex, either.” The detective reiterated, cutting his slowly spiraling memories short. Guilt was creeping in at the comparison of his mother’s neglect to a prostitute’s emotional resilience. 

Azra offered him a condescending look.

“I’m serious, I mean that. I work for the precinct in Boulogne-Billancourt, and-”

Her sudden bark of laughter startled him out of his sentence. She left her hesitant perch on the bed, ducking into the bathroom to rifle under the cupboard. 

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like, kraut? If you are not a client, I am going to fix my make-up for the next customer.” The woman emphasised her point by holding up a bottle of foundation. “I know the Boulogne-Billancourt precinct very well. You flics are all the same. Dirty, old, men.”

“...What do you mean by that?”

It was a stupid question, he could tell as much from the fed-up look Azra shot him in the mirror. 

“I’ve been a whore for a very long time, Ulrich. Flics come through these doors often. Usually they are here to bust the pimp or arrest the girls, but other times…” 

Other times, they were there to dip their fingers in the honey pot. Message received, loud and clear. Ulrich stayed quiet, his head reeling from the information as the darkness burned sour in his chest. Police officers were taking advantage of the sex workers in Boulogne-Billancourt, arresting them one day and paying them for sex the next. No wonder Aelita didn’t trust them.

 _‘Oh god, has this happened to her, too?’_

“Who? Who in the police force is doing this?”

He heard the _clink_ of Azra’s foundation bottle being set on the counter before her head and torso leaned out of the doorframe. A deep, sultry, red stain was covering her lips, the same color misting her eyelids. It was a good look for her, the detective thought. Good, but terrifying. 

Like a black widow.

Her smile was dangerously pointed as she moved away from the bathroom and closer to him. “I’m not stupid. If you want answers, you can open your wallet.”

“I already paid you.” 

“No,” Azra lowered herself onto his lap to straddle him, forcing Ulrich to lean backwards in discomfort, “you paid my pimp. You did not pay me.”

The darkness itched to throttle the woman. She wasn’t just getting in the way of him and the information he desperately needed, she was getting in the way of hunting down Maïtena’s killer and the man who hurt Aelita.

“Don’t waste my time. I might just go back on my word and arrest you. Do you really want to put your ‘all flics are the same’ theory to the test?” The words turned his own stomach. He really didn’t like threatening her, but he was running out of options. Not to mention he had given Roman the last of his cash…

Azra’s poker face was impeccable. 

“Okay.” She acquiesced, leaning in closer until her face was inches from his. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine...and I want to go first.”

Ulrich begrudgingly agreed. 

“Is she pretty?”

“Is _who_ pretty?” The detective snapped back.

“The girl you’re saving yourself for.”

Why everyone seemed to think Ulrich was a virgin, the man didn’t know. Elisabeth had explained, in less than work-appropriate terms, that it was his gentlemanly behavior. Well, that and the way he had blushed profusely and uncomfortably after she had tried to fondle him under the restaurant table. 

His unease around touch was another one of his parents’ unfortunate shortcomings. Neither Mikhael nor Johanna were physically affectionate individuals, even when it came to raising their only son. Odd and Elisabeth’s need for touch, for a physical human connection, had not only been confusing but also terrifying. A year later he was still getting used to the way Odd would end up cuddled next to him after a night terror, or the way Elisabeth would seek him out for an embrace after a particularly grueling day. 

Somehow, his unsureness around physical touch had bled over into his sex life, too. It was why he felt so relaxed around Emily. She was a self-identified asexual with a strong disdain for touch akin to Jeremie’s. While dating, she and Ulrich didn’t once sleep together, and she didn’t paw at him the way most women - Elisabeth, included - did. Her presence, always at least three feet away, was comforting in its lack of expectation and its inability to rile up the darkness. 

“She must be, if you don’t want to have sex with me. I mean I’m on your lap and you’re not even hard.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Why do you assume I’m ‘saving myself’ for someone?”

“I can smell it on you, Ulrich.” She clambered off of his lap and disappeared back into the bathroom. “I guess it’s your turn to ask a question.”

Thank god. “What do you know about Maïtena Lecuyer?”

“I know she’s dead,” she stated obviously, “I know she had a kid, it was all she ever cared about,” that wasn’t new information, “and she worked as a hooker on some nights and a dancer on others.”

Ulrich sighed with frustration. “Right, I know all of that. I want to know what she was involved in. Innocent people don’t get brutally dismembered and dumped in the garbage.”

Azra poked her head out of the bathroom to look at him. “No one in this town is innocent, kraut. Not even little miss, god-fearing Maïtena.”

“Because she was a prostitute?” He asked.

“Hardly. Just being a prostitute doesn’t warrant someone wanting you dead, though it is a decent start. Every working girl in Boulogne-Billancourt knows that there are some clients you avoid at all costs. Sometimes, if you belong to a pimp, that’s not possible, but if you’re an independent hooker you can get away with choosing your clients.” She pulled the cap off of a tube of mascara before turning back to the mirror. “I’d heard some rumors that she’d gotten herself involved with one of the worst clients this city has.”

“Who?” Ulrich prompted. 

“That dead banker, Gustave Chardin. The shrimp-dick had massive amounts of expendable income. If you’re desperate to feed your child, like Maïtena was, you’ll do just about anything for cash. Nothing was ever off of the table for that pig.”

A dark look passed over the woman’s face, Ulrich could see it in her reflection. A tense silence followed as the detective thought about her words.

“The girl...that you were asking about.” He offered out of guilt, choosing his words carefully. “She’s a reporter. She’s...she’s beautiful. She kicks my ass, too.”

“And you haven’t fucked her, yet?” Azra snarked.

“No. She’s not...she’s not just sex, for me. She’s important.” Ulrich shook his head, impatiently. “My turn again: tell me what you know about Club Lyoko.”

“Interesting, that you of all people know about Club Lyoko...” There was genuine confusion on the sex worker’s face. “I...well, it’s a sex club for the rich and powerful: politicians, sports players, even higher ups in the police department, those who are insatiable for more than just money and power.” 

Azra turned off the bathroom lights and walked to her bag, letting her robe fall to the floor just in front of Ulrich. She quickly produced a black, lacy, bralette, turning to face the detective as she fixed the clasps. “You have to be on a list if you want to get in. Help me with my bra, will you?”

The detective got to his feet, holding the bra in place with his left hand while Azra connected the clasps. “And how does one get on that list?”

“I assure _you_ that you’ll never be on it. One has to have a fat, fat, checkbook. Look, I hate to cut this little meeting short, kraut, but if I’m not riding you, I have time to get in an extra client.”

As much as he wanted to, Ulrich couldn’t argue with that logic. He nodded, moving to the TV stand. 

“Wait, Ulrich.” Azra shuffled back into the bathroom for a moment before returning with a small package. She twisted it until there was a small _crack_ then motioned for Ulrich’s hand. “Let me see.” 

The appendage throbbed, and a sharp burning sensation went through his fingers as she delicately held the ice pack to it. Slowly, she moved closer, until her chest was nearly pressed to his. 

“What are yo..”

A hand snaked around the back of his neck, pulling his head down further. Her lips were wet, sticky, and had the soft chemical aftertaste of flavorless gloss. The detective was glad that her eyes were still closed as she pulled away. It made it easier to smooth over the nauseated look on his face. 

“Mmh…your reporter is...a _very_ lucky girl.” Azra breathed, leaning her forehead against Ulrich’s. “You can go, now. Return the key to Roman on your way out.” 

About time, his skin was starting to crawl. 

“Wait, Azra, take this.” From his pocket he produced one of his work cards, offering it to her. “If you can think of anything else, will you call me?”

“What will you do if I don’t, kraut?” It wasn’t a real threat, but it nudged the darkness in him, nonetheless. 

With one last look before pulling the door closed behind him, he shot back. “Don’t worry, I know where to find you.”

The hallway felt longer as he trudged towards the stairs, deep in thought. It hadn’t been much information, but for what it was, it was valuable. With Azra’s help, they had a link from Chardin to Maïtena, and that meant they had an indirect link to Peter Duncan as well. Granted, Chardin was lying motionless in a morgue drawer, and Peter Duncan was as good as a ghost with his newfound parole freedom, but the connections still carried weight. Had Maïtena found a pimp? Had Duncan forced her to service Chardin? 

Ulrich wiped at his lips, trying to get the stickiness of Azra’s lipgloss off. 

They still had the banker’s journal, which meant they could chance a fairly decent guess as to what the sex worker may have been involved in, even if it was only tangentially. Now all he had to do was figure out how to tell Odd all of this information without revealing how he had acquired it…

Before he could think, before he could consciously feel the slender hand that shot out and grabbed his arm, Ulrich pulled his gun from its holster and spun his attacker around, pinning them to the wall and pushing the barrel up against their ribs. The darkness vibrated along his limbs, pouring into his hands and tingling in his fingers. 

“A bit jumpy today, aren’t we?” It was a woman’s voice, soft-spoken and delicate. “Are you going to shoot me, Detective Stern?”

His forehead creased in confusion, taking in the woman in front of him. The wide, green eyes and soft, pink cheeks were instantly recognizable. What threw him off was the jaw-length black hair and bangs. He reached up and pulled the wig off, revealing soft, pink and blonde tufts. 

“Aelita? Christ, what the hell are you doing here? Don’t sneak up on me like that, I could’ve shot you!”

The pink-haired woman pushed the barrel of the gun away and snatched back her wig, her expression detached and inconvenienced. “I could ask you the same thing, Detective. I saw you leaving Azra’s room. Does Yumi know you’re here?”

There was judgement in her tone, and Ulrich couldn’t blame her. He looked suspicious, even more so now that he had pinned her to the wall and held her at gunpoint. As quickly as he could with only one hand, he stowed his weapon back in its holster. 

“God, no. Detective Della Robbia doesn’t even know I’m here. I was getting information about, uh, about the case. I didn’t have sex with her. Why are you here? I thought you didn’t have a pimp.”

“I don’t.” She explained, hastily. “I rent the room for the night. It’s safer to meet clients here than to get picked up on the street. I’m about to go home, though. You have...lipstick on your face, by the way.”

It was something in the way she exchanged his bare-minimum explanation for her own, holding back vital knowledge that might help him put together her actions. Or maybe it was the wig, meant to conceal something so indicative of her identity: her bubblegum-pink hair. Without the soft, whimsical, color, she looked hard-edged, angry, and sensual. The black wig made the green in her eyes brighter than usual, giving her an almost alien and ethereal look. Innately, he felt safe in her presence, as if all the dark puzzle pieces inside of him fit together perfectly. There was a darkness in her, too. He could feel it, and he wanted to know what it was. 

“Technically I’m supposed to be at the bar, having drinks with the forensic team from the precinct.” He ignored her pointed expression. “If you don’t have anywhere to be, I can buy you a drink.” 

“Yeah, okay, but only if it comes with food,” a dangerous grin pulled her lips upwards, “and only if I get to ask what’s going on between you and Yumi. She won’t tell me anything!!”

He returned the key to Roman (ignoring the condescending “Came in one girl and left with another, huh, mystery man?”), and the pair left the building and the alleyway to The Replika. The Boulevard had only gotten busier in his absence, forcing them to navigate around drunken couples and loud groups of men and women. Slowly, but surely, the quantity of neon lights spluttered and came to a complete stop, signaling their return to Boulogne-Billancourt’s outermost streets. 

“Ulrich?” Aelita broke the comfortable silence. 

He looked down at her expectantly as they ambled towards The Factory. 

“Can I ask you something? Well, it’s both a statement and a question, but mostly I just need your help.”

They stopped at a set of stairs, Aelita wrapping her hands around the wrought-iron railing nervously. 

“You can ask me anything, you know that.” He answered. 

It took another moment, in which she refused to look him in the eye, before she worked up the courage to continue. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Maïtena’s daughter, you know? I think...well, I think she needs a family who knows her, and I know her. I know she hates mushrooms, I know she gets scared when the toilet flushes, I know she _says_ her favorite color is red, but her room was filled almost entirely with blue things.”

Ulrich’s face fell into a small smile. He could almost imagine it, a younger, tinier, version of Maïtena. Love was emanating off of Aelita’s words in ways that simultaneously broke his heart and healed the overwhelming hurt the past few weeks had caused. 

“Nathalie is a precious, beautiful, little girl. Maïtena spent every waking moment of her life loving her, and if that’s my...my testament to Maïtena’s life? If the one thing I can do to honor her is to adopt her daughter? Then I’d give up hooking, I’d go back to school, I’d do anything to give that life to he-”

“Aelita..?” A gentle voice interrupted.

The detective’s eyebrows furrowed as he and Aelita turned to face the newcomer. The lights on the street casted a soft glow on half of the woman’s face, revealing shoulder length blonde hair that was slowly greying at the roots, and a short, thin, frame. Something about her eyes - hazel and wide - was intensely familiar…

“Aelita, do you know-” Ulrich stopped dead when he caught sight of the pink-haired woman’s reaction. She had turned white as a sheet, one hand held over her mouth in shock. The expression on her face was almost a perfect mirror of the older woman in front of them.

One step forward, then two, before she answered Ulrich’s question with one of her own.

“M-mom…?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was a lie, it took me forever to update again. Guess who broke the same wrist he just had surgery on? That's right, this guy. Expect delay for 13 because of that.
> 
> As always thank you to my consistent readers and thank you to the new folks we've picked up recently! This fic updates as it's written. I'm starting to plan out a Supernatural fic, will update once that plan solidifies......
> 
> EpsilonTarantula is an awesome beta, and he just posted Chapter 7 of Garage Kids to AO3! Go check it out for another dark CL fic.


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